Brussels, 11/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - Following the informal debate in Nykoping, Monday's General Affairs Council will attempt to reach a common negotiating position between the Fifteen on the chapter on the free movement of persons which - according to the "road map" approved in Nice - should lead to negotiations under the current Swedish Presidency with the most advanced countries. Should agreement be reached on Monday, the chapter could be on the table on 17/18 May, at the scheduled round of negotiations with all twelve candidates, at deputy level. In order to find a common position, so much wanted by the candidates, the foreign ministers will, however, have to agree on several controversial issues on Monday:
Length of the basic transitional period that the EU should demand, and review procedures. Germany, Austria and Finland have called for a seven year transitional period: in its proposal, the Commission broadly agreed with this request, as it recommends a five year period (with n initial review after two years), that could be extended by two years in case of "serious disturbances" on the labour market of a Member State ("5+2" formula). At this stage, we are still far from the unanimity required in favour of the Commission's proposal, several Member States considering it unnecessary to restrain the movement of workers for such a long period as five years. Some have come up with the idea of a short transition period (two years, for example) together with a safeguard clause allowing for measures to be taken should problems really arise. Others, like Belgium, for example, are calling for differentiation between candidates, so as to take account of real threats to the labour market.
Whether or not to apply transitional periods for certain services. Germany and Austria are calling for the same transitional periods for workers to be applied to certain services too, notably in border regions. The Presidency seems to be moving towards the idea of excluding services from the field of application of the transitional periods but of granting Germany and Austria the possibility of implementing temporary national measures to a precise and well-defined number of services, to tackle the problem of the "false self-employed" (Scheinselbtanding).
The link, established by Spain, between the common position on the free movement of persons and the future regional policy. In its recent Memorandum, Spain requests that the special "statistical effect" that would result from the accession of new, relatively poor members and that would lead to its losing part of its structural aid, to be settled in the framework of accession negotiations. The Commission, the Swedish Presidency and most Member States, while saying the understand the problem raised by Madrid, refuse this link between accession negotiations (which concern the current acquis) and the definition of post-2006 regional policy. Diplomats said on Friday that there were moves towards the Council adopting conclusions that would give Spain a kind of "political guarantee" that economic and social policy will be continued for all Member States after enlargement, and that the problem would be dealt with in time, when preparing the next 2007-2013 regional package.