War of words erupts over enlargement

Date: 23/03/2000

Frustration over the slow pace of accession talks with the countries leading the race to join the EU is beginning to boil over, with each side blaming the other for the delays and growing speculation that Poland could be left out of the 'first wave' of entrants because of its lack of progress in preparing for Union membership. Simon Taylor reports

IT WAS only to be expected. As the enlargement negotiations with the six front-runner countries enter their most difficult phase, frustration over the slow progress to date is fuelling fears that the Prodi Commission may fail to complete the first wave of enlargement before its term of office ends in 2005.

Attention is focusing on Poland as the biggest potential obstacle to early expansion of the EU, amid an increasingly bitter war of words between Brussels and Warsaw.

Because of Poland's size and its strategic importance as Germany's neighbour, it is hard to imagine it being left out when the first of the post-Communist states enter the Union fold.

But that is exactly what some European Commission officials and member state experts have been talking about amid growing concern at Warsaw's perceived poor performance in passing and implementing the new laws needed to prepare the country for EU membership.

"Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen's view on this is that each candidate country will be able to join when it is ready and if Poland is not ready, it will have to wait," said one official dealing with enlargement.

Feelings are also running high in Warsaw, with Polish officials laying much of the blame for the lack of progress in the negotiations at the door of the Commission and member states.

They claim that Union negotiators are unfairly denying Poland the chance to close two or three more chapters in the talks. This is seen as vital because it would enable the government to send a strong signal to the population that the painful efforts the country is making to qualify for membership are producing results.

Poland's Ambassador to the EU Jan Truszczynski claims that negotiations could be closed in the areas of customs, financial controls and common foreign and security policy relatively soon. "There are not really any tangible reasons for the hesitancy on the part of the Commission and the member states. We are not very clear about what needs to be done," he said.

A second bone of contention for the Poles and other applicant countries is the Union's approach to negotiations on the largest and most difficult chapters which are due to be tackled before June, such as agriculture, regional policy and the free movement of people. The candidates have attacked the Commission and EU governments of failing to set out their positions on these most sensitive of issues in detail, warning that this increases the risk that the real horse-trading will not begin until much later even if the negotiations do start on time.

Hungary's Ambassador to the Union Endre Juhász has also criticised the Commission for failing to negotiate on issues of substance, complaining that sessions are all too often devoted simply to repeatedly asking the candidates to justify their positions.

Commission officials have confirmed that EU position papers on farming and regional aid due out next month will set out general rather than specific positions on these questions. But they argue that this is unavoidable to prevent arguments between existing member states over some of the Union's most sensitive policy areas at this stage. This, they claim, would scupper attempts to open negotiations on these chapters before June and mean a real delay in the enlargement timetable.

They also counter accusations of alleged foot-dragging by the Union by voicing their own frustrations over the progress to date.

Commission officials are expressing particular concern that Poland's three-party coalition government has little control over the behaviour of its members in parliament, who often tinker with legislation to such an extent that the final version is completely out of line with EU laws. They cite recent changes to a state aid bill as a example.

Warsaw also caused the Commission to tear its hair out with provocative moves in the agricultural field, such as the recent decision to raise import tariffs on cereals, which official say is completely against the spirit of the preparations for membership.

Polish officials claim that recent talks in Warsaw have solved many of these problems and improved the atmosphere considerably.

But agriculture is still casting a long shadow over the enlargement process. The Agenda 2000 budget deal agreed by Union governments last March left no room for direct support payments to farmers in central and eastern Europe, yet Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler has conceded that it would be unreasonable to deny them the same benefits as their counterparts in existing EU countries after a transition period.

Officials admit that some form of compensation will have to be paid to farmers in the candidate countries, but until it is clear where this money will come from, the Commission and member states cannot take a clear position on the agriculture chapter. They also warn that Warsaw is not making this problem any easier to solve by its slow progress in restructuring Poland's farm sector.

All these omens are fuelling speculation that instead of admitting the applicant countries to the Union in 'waves' from 2003 onwards, as the front-runners hope, there will instead be one big enlargement later as some of the second group of candidates which were invited to join the negotiations in Helsinki last December use the delays in negotiations with the leading applicants to catch up.

Bulgaria's chief negotiator Alexander Boshkov claims that talks with his country will proceed more quickly because the first-wavers will have broken the back of the most difficult issues. "It will be much easier after the first six countries have resolved those problems," he said.

EU diplomats also acknowledge that it would be easier, both politically and economically, to admit the leading applicants into the Union at the same time as their immediate neighbours. Taking in Estonia without Lithuania and Latvia or the Czech Republic without Slovakia would, for example, make little sense.

Given that, whatever Verheugen might say, Union leaders are unlikely to agree to press ahead with first wave of enlargement until Poland is ready to join, the key question which must be answered is whether Warsaw is really lagging behind the other first-wave countries as badly as its critics suggest.

Commission officials acknowledge that all the front-runners except Slovenia are facing severe problems in getting their legislation into line with EU rules. They also acknowledge that while Poland had a poor year in 1999, the government had a great deal on its plate as it struggled to introduce difficult reforms of the health, education, social security and pensions systems.

It was always inevitable that as the negotiations moved into their most difficult phase, tensions and frustration would run high on both sides. But the danger now is that predictions of a slow down in the enlargement process could become a self-fulfilling prophecy if the mutual mud-slinging weakens the resolve of the candidate countries, the Commission and member states to take the steps necessary to make enlargement a success.

Major feature. Frustration over the slow pace of accession talks with the countries leading the race to join the EU is beginning to boil over, with each side blaming the other for the delays and growing speculation that Poland could be left out of the 'first wave' of entrants because of its lack of progress in preparing for Union membership.