Still much to do to avoid “summit rotten” in the state of Denmark

Date: 12/12/02

By David Cronin

SHORTLY before Denmark began its stint as EU president in July, European Voice predicted four major hurdles on the road to its number one objective - ensuring the Union's expansion. These concerned money, Cyprus, Kaliningrad and the Nice Treaty.

More than five months later only one of these impediments has been fully removed: Ireland's endorsement of Nice in its October referendum ended the uncertainty over whether a treaty many regard as essential for EU enlargement could come into effect.

As leaders from both present and prospective EU members packed their bags for the Copenhagen summit, they were bracing themselves for intense haggling over the bill for admitting ten new countries into the Union in 2004.

Poland, the largest of those states, is driving the hardest bargain (see interview, opposite). Warsaw's demand for greater aid to its budget has been rebuffed by EU negotiators. However, European foreign ministers appeared willing this week to partially concede to the clamour from Poland and other candidate states for higher agricultural production quotas.

Privately, EU insiders say that Polish premier Leszek Miller is probably talking tough for reasons of domestic politics. He knows that any sign of weakness will be seized upon by opposition parties and could possibly destabilise his coalition government.

Yet as the ex-Communist has morphed into a pragmatist, it seems virtually unthinkable he would be prepared to scupper the summit's chances of success. The most likely outcome is that he will drop outstanding demands at the last moment and then present the deal that emerges as the best possible one he could get.

The EU-15 will be loath, then, to grant more aid to Poland than has already been agreed. A special deal would only spur other candidate countries to press for more funding. Cyprus and Slovakia, the first two states to complete their accession talks this week, have both made clear they would reopen them at Copenhagen if they felt they deserved benefits being offered to others.

It is likely that Cyprus will be given the green light for Union membership before an accord is reached on how its Turkish and Greek communities should govern the island in the future.

Luckily, that prospect may not mean the instability in the eastern Mediterranean which some had feared, because an eventual deal could be on the horizon.

The UN's envoy to the island, Alvaro de Soto, has worked frantically in the past few days to convince both Greek and Turkish Cypriots to enter "final status" negotiations. Eager to find a solution before Cyprus eventually joins the Union, the UN has submitted a comprehensive plan on how the island could be run as a federation based on the Swiss and Belgian models.

This week Secretary-General Kofi Annan tweaked the blueprint to take on board complaints from each side over its proposals on land transfers and return of property confiscated during Turkey's 1974 invasion. Shuttle diplomacy was continuing in the final hours ahead of the Copenhagen summit in a bid to get leaders of both communities to start talks on the revised plan.

Those who thought the obstacle which Kaliningrad presents to a smooth enlargement had been completely crossed at the 11 November EU-Russia summit were wrong. Lithuania, which neighbours Russia's Baltic enclave, wasn't happy at how it was sidelined during those talks - where it was agreed that Kaliningrad's citizens will be able to travel to mainland Russia with a low-cost transit document rather than a formal visa.

Vilnius is now offering to rubber-stamp the deal. But the offer comes with an annual price tag of €10 million attached. That sum would help compensate Lithuania for the revenue it will lose from not being able to levy visa charges on Kaliningrad residents crossing into its territory and cover some of the administrative costs of processing the transit papers. Vilnius says it wants access to several million euro from early in 2003.

"We would like to take this off the agenda as soon as possible," said Rytis Martikonis, Lithuania's under-secretary in the ministry of foreign affairs.

"But we will have to get something tangible either in our accession treaty or in the Council [summit] conclusions."

Because none of the three aforementioned hurdles look insurmountable, Copenhagen should wind up with heads of 25 European governments slapping themselves on the back in a euphoric, if bleary-eyed, celebration.

But the smiles on those leaders' faces could be eclipsed by the dejected look worn by Turkish premier Abdullah Gül and the country's unofficial head Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The two men have shown great tenacity since last month's general election in campaigning for Copenhagen to give them a date for Turkey to start EU accession talks. That call will probably be rebuffed - just as a Turkish request to become an official candidate for EU membership was turned down by the 1997 Luxembourg summit.

The most Copenhagen looks set to agree is to back a Franco-German call for Turkey's reform process to be reviewed in late 2004. The country would then be invited to start negotiations in 2005, if it has made enough progress on controversial issues such as abolishing torture, releasing political prisoners and guaranteeing freedom of expression.

Dutch MEP Joost Lagendijk, who chairs the European Parliament's delegation to Turkey, said such an outcome ought to be perceived as a step forward for Ankara but there is a danger it will consider it a defeat.

"The Turkish government is playing hardball at the moment," said Lagendijk, who recently had talks with both Gül and Erdogan. "Its attitude is "now or never", "everything or nothing". It doesn't think about what fallback it should have if it doesn't get 100 what it wants."

Failure to give Turkey a definitive date would also involve the EU taking a different line from the United States, an enthusiastic backer of Ankara's EU entry ambitions. Some commentators have suggested Washington has an ulterior motive - to secure Ankara's support for a potential strike against Iraq.

But a US diplomat denied that this week, arguing the Bush administration believed Turkish integration with the EU was important for promoting reform and political stability in the country.

"The earlier the date can be set for accession negotiations, the better it would be for keeping this [reform] process alive," the diplomat said.

Like Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria won't be invited into the EU fold at Copenhagen. But the goal of having them in the club by the end of this decade - possibly in 2007 - should be alluded to.

Additionally, the two states are hoping for some decision to be made about what funding they will receive in coming years.

Lazar Comãnescu, Romania's EU ambassador, has welcomed a European Commission proposal to give the two countries 40 more cash in 2004-2006 than they received in 2001-2003. Yet he argues that an even greater increase would be possible under the terms of the budget deal thrashed out at the 1999 Berlin summit.

"We say that to go beyond 40 is a possibility," he said. "And we do hope it will be explored."

Preview of the European Council, Copenhagen, 12-13 December 2002.