Brussels, 25/01/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Portuguese Presidency of the EU Council has reiterated its political will to take forward in the next six months the process of enlargement of the Union in all three areas of work now in progress, namely:
A. Opening of accession negotiations with the six countries of the former "second group": Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and Malta.
As expected, the negotiations will officially open on 15 February in Brussels with the participation of the Foreign Ministers of the EU and of the six applicant countries. After the opening ceremony, the first opportunity for the Fifteen to discuss substantive issues with the applicants will be the first negotiation meeting, to be held at deputy level (Permanent Representatives for the Member States and Chief Negotiators for the applicant states) during the latter half of March (the exact date remains to be decided).
At this first meeting at deputy level, the Presidency and the Member States plan to submit to the applicants a programme for this half-year with the list of the first chapters to be negotiated. A second meeting at deputy level is planned for May, followed in mid-June by a ministerial negotiating meeting (Foreign Ministers).
As was the case in 1998 with the six "first group" applicants, the negotiations with the six new candidates will begin with the easiest chapters: research, statistics, education and so on.
The Portuguese Presidency, in accordance with the principle of differentiation between candidates (a principle suggested by the Commission in its new enlargement strategy presented last October and approved by the Helsinki Summit in December), is not ruling out the possibility of the number of chapters open varying from one applicant to the next, from the outset (even though the Commission took the view that there was a need to begin talks on the same basis with all applicants, i.e. on the same chapters, and to differentiate only in the course of negotiations). The number of chapters that can be opened with the six new candidates in this half year will depend upon the common positions that the Commission services are preparing and that Member States will be in a position to approve in due course.
B. Opening of final chapters with the six "first wave" applicants: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus.
The Portuguese Presidency plans to open negotiations by the end of June on all six final chapters not yet addressed with the six countries that have been negotiating their accession since March 1998. These are the most difficult issues: agriculture, free movement of persons, justice and home affairs, regional policy, financial control and budgetary policy. The "institutions" and "miscellaneous" chapters will be addressed in a subsequent phase.
The Portuguese Presidency plans to convene two deputy-level negotiation meetings (one in early April and the other in mid-may), along with a ministerial meeting (Foreign Ministers) in June. The order in which the six chapters are addressed will depend in large measure on how the European Commission presents its draft common positions on each of the applicants and the timing thereof, and on Member States' capacity to agree on these positions.
At this stage, the Commission has stated that it could submit its draft common positions to the Council according to the following approximate timeframe: 1) regional policy: the text has already been forwarded to the Council; 2) financial control, late February; 3) justice and home affairs, around mid-march; 4) budgetary policy, late March; 5 and 6) free movement of persons and agriculture, around mid-April.
C. Pursuit of negotiations with Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus in the chapters still open, but not yet "provisionally closed".
The Presidency plans to make progress on the following "leftover" chapters (already open): free movement of goods, freedom to provide services, free movement of capital, company law, fisheries and social policy. The objective is to close provisionally a maximum number of these chapters. The Commission is due to present draft common positions on each in the coming weeks and months.
In principle, these "leftover" chapters are to be dealt with during two negotiating meetings at deputy level (early April and mid May), as well as during the ministerial meeting in June. The Presidency, however, does not rule out the possible convening, early March, of a third deputy meeting to deal exclusively with the chapters already open, "if there is enough substance on the agenda", said Portuguese sources. (This seems somewhat unlikely due to the practical and operational difficulties in having sufficient projects available).