Sweden to push for breakthrough in key enlargement talks

Date: 19/10/00

By Tim Jones

SWEDEN will push for a "critical breakthrough" in the toughest areas of negotiations with the EU's six front-running applicants after it takes over the Union presidency in January to put receding chances of an early enlargement back on track.

Stockholm aims to crack some of the really contentious issues such as agriculture, the environment, free movement of people and budgetary contributions with Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus by next summer.

This, together with a timetable for completing each stage of the negotiations and introducing the necessary reforms in each of the candidate countries to prepare for membership, is intended to inject greater urgency into the talks.

Lars Danielsson, state secretary for EU affairs in Prime Minister Goran Persson's office, set out what his government hoped to achieve by the end of its presidency in an interview with European Voice this week. If all went according to plan, he said, "we would have made a critical breakthrough in some of the most difficult chapters with the leading countries; we would have a 'work programme' with dates and methods to make the enlargement process irreversible and provided a clear road map for candidates; and present member states' enthusiasm for enlargement will be a little greater than it is today".

The fall of Slobodan Milosevic's government in Yugoslavia has injected new political impetus into the drive to accelerate the enlargement talks and bind fast-reforming former Soviet bloc countries into the Union as early as 2004. But EU policy-makers say slow progress in the negotiations, partly the result of pre-Nice paralysis, and the need to ratify all the accession treaties makes January 2005 a more likely date.

Striking deals on issues such as agriculture or free movement will be extremely difficult. As they stand, the EU's farm aid regimes could only be extended to central and eastern Europe at great cost, and Austria - where migrant workers from the region already account for more than 1% of the workforce - will seek transitional exemptions from the Union's labour free-movement rules.

Danielsson said that to speed up the talks with all 12 candidates, his government wants both sides to draft a "work programme for the remainder of the enlargement process including a 'time element'; not just for entry to the Union but also other stages of the process". He added: "I do not think there is convergence among member states around an entry date, but there is around the idea of having a time element generally."

Under the Swedish plan, target dates would be set for opening talks on all 31 chapters of the EU members' rulebook (acquis communautaire) with the second-wave countries invited to the negotiating table at last year's Helsinki summit.

However, the Helsinki Six's hopes that Sweden would, as a matter of policy, extend discussions to all the areas which have not yet been broached may be dashed. "We want to open up as many chapters as possible with the Helsinki countries," said Danielsson. "How many? It is still too early to say and this to a large extent depends on the Commission report."

The European Commission will publish its annual analysis of applicants' readiness for EU membership on 8 November.

Sweden will push for a 'critical breakthrough' in the toughest areas of negotiations with the EU's six front-running applicants after it takes over the Union Presidency in January 2001, to put receding chances of an early enlargement back on track.