Spirit of co-operation will solve EU enlargement issues, says commission

THE generous spirit with which the Irish said Yes to Nice has encouraged EU foreign ministers to resolve most of the remaining obstacles to enlargement, according to Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verhoygen.

The ministers met yesterday in Luxembourg to clear the way for the leaders of the 15 member states meeting tomorrow and Friday to take the final steps to admitting 10 new members.

A range of difficult leftovers from the past three years of negotiations between the EU and the candidate countries was agreed by the member states yesterday.

A delighted Mr Verhoygen said: "Saturday was a good day for enlargement and the spirit of Ireland gave the additional boost to find solutions."

The final phase of the negotiations requires EU leaders to agree on the thorny issue of funding for the candidate countries in their first years of membership. These decisions must be taken this week otherwise enlargement could be delayed.

The big four net contributors to the EU Germany, Britain, Sweden and The Netherlands have been playing hardball over money but signs yesterday indicated they will be willing to move.

The Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller said the leaders must make the final decisions this week to leave time to conclude negotiations with the candidate countries. "We might as well agree on Thursday and Friday as in six months. If you cannot do it now you can never do it."

The decisions to be made now are whether the EU will make €708m available to ensure no country is worse off the year after they join than in the year before; or €354m to make sure none of them pay in more to the EU than they receive back in the first year.

* This budget compensation of €1.3bn over three years as proposed by the Commission works out at less than 3 per EU citizen over three years. The lump sum to the 10 countries is much less than the €2.4bn paid to the more wealthy countries of Austria, Sweden and Finland when they joined.

* Structural Funds: The Commission has proposed making €25.5m available for structural funds for the new members up to 2006, while the Germans and British say this figure should be €21.4bn, but just to 2006.

The big difficulty however, will be farmers' subsidies that currently use up almost half the EU's total budget. The Commission has proposed to phase in these payments starting at 25% of the present rate of what farmers receive but the big four say they want it set at less.

The ministers yesterday agreed a two-year probationary period for the candidates during which any signs they are breaching the agreements on internal market, justice and other areas of EU law can be acted on immediately.