EU ministers agree to delay enlargement until May 2004

Europe correspondent

Officially they want to postpone the date to allow the 10 candidate countries to finish negotiations, debate the outcome in their parliaments and hold referendums on entry.

But some of the new countries, including Poland and the Czech Republic, say they do not want to put off the date because their citizens are expecting full membership on January 1, 2004.

There are just 25 days left now to conclude the haggling over payments for farmers, structural funds and cohesion funds to the 10 new EU members.

But the biggest sticking point for several of the countries is that for technical reasons they may pay more into the EU during their first year or two of membership than they receive from it.

Countries like Poland have warned that they will not be able to convince their citizens to vote for entry in the referenda they are scheduled to hold next year.

The deal they will now be offered will see them receiving EU funds from 1 January but not start paying their monthly contributions to the EU until May which should save them about 5 billion.

The candidates have been pushing for compensation payments to ensure that they do not become net payers in 2004 and 2005, but the existing members have been resisting.

The EU foreign ministers, including Brian Cowen, meeting in Brussels yesterday said they can take part as full members in decisions from January 2004, including the Intergovernmental Conference on the Future of Europe document.

“With a positive disposition from the applicant countries I believe we will successfully conclude negotiations with the 25 days left,” said Mr Cowen. The summit meeting of leaders of the existing 15 EU member states will then officially invite the 10 countries to join in Copenhagen on 12 December.