Brussels, 15/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - One day after the provisional failure of the discussions by the General Affairs Council on the free movement of workers after enlargement (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.9), the Swedish EU Presidency announced, on Tuesday, that it had decided to postpone until 1 June the meetings on accession negotiations. These meetings would normally have been held on Friday (18 May) at deputy level with the most advanced candidates of Central and Eastern Europe: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia and Slovenia. In the meantime, the meeting with Cyprus, the sixth candidate of the former "Luxembourg group" (those which began negotiating in March 1998), will be held on Thursday 17 May. The same day, negotiating sessions will also take place, as planned, with the six countries of the former "Helsinki Group": Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia and Malta. The agenda of Thursday's meetings will also be decided on Wednesday during a meeting of Coreper.
On Tuesday, the Swedish Presidency sought to explain that the deferment until 1 June was due to "purely technical" reasons that "have nothing to do with" the current deadlock within the Fifteen over the free movement of persons. "There is nothing problematical about this twelve-day postponement. It is not a political problem, but a technical problem", Anna Lindh, the Swedish Foreign Minister, told the press after the joint meeting of EU foreign ministers with their counterparts from candidate countries (during which discussions turned to CFSP related issues and to relations between the EU and NATO). According to Ms Lindh, some candidate countries themselves requested postponement of the negotiating session until early June (this was not confirmed by any of the candidates …) in order to allow better preparation and to ensure that the agenda of these meetings may be "more substantial". Other sources, however, explain that the Swedish Presidency focused all its efforts over recent days on seeking a compromise between the Fifteen on the free movement of persons. This means that the preparatory work on the other chapters likely to be dealt with during the next negotiating meeting with Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Estonia and Slovenia has not sufficiently moved forward to justify holding a meeting at the end of this week.
The reactions of candidate countries concerned show proof of comprehension for the decision by the Swedish Presidency. "We prefer to wait a few days for a substantial meeting rather than have a meeting without substance immediately", said Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi.