Caceres, 11/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - At their meeting in Caceres on Friday, the EU foreign ministers pledged to fully respect the aim of concluding enlargement negotiations by the end of 2002, explained the President of the EU Council of Minister, Josep Pique, after the first ministerial debate on the financial package for enlargement put unveiled by the Commission on 30 January. The Spanish foreign minister said they had had a dense, frank and animated discussion, and came out with a three-point credo: negotiations had to be concluded by the end of the year in line with the commitment made at Laeken; enlargement negotiations should not be confused with the reform of the Common Agriculture Policy; and the financial framework outlined in Berlin in March 1999 had to be adhered to. His message, however, summed up rather half-hearted discussions where ministers gave the impression of being more concerned about putting things off than about making progress in order to be in a position to draw negotiations to a close in the next few months. To the extent that at the San Francisco convent where the meeting took place, rumours were circulating that Germany and France had agreed with each other to not make any commitments before the German elections (22 September 2002).
During the debate, the Commission's proposals were welcomed by most Member States but Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden expressed doubts about the "generosity" of the proposed package and the introduction of direct agricultural aid to the candidate countries. This outcome was expected, following the preparatory meetings of the Council's enlargement group (see EUROPE of 9 February, p.6). Germany and the Netherlands wanted guarantees about the review of the Common Agriculture Policy, but held back from making this a preconditions for enlargement.
In statements clearly aimed at public opinion, the German foreign minister Joschka Fisher made a connection between the size of Germany's contribution to the EU budget and a warning that Germany had been given a warning by the Commission about its budget deficit; "Nobody can have interests in overburdening Germany". He said they had just received a blue letter (how the Commission's warning letter is described in Germany, see EUROPE of 6 February, p.12) and a red letter will be waiting for us if we have to bear the weight of enlargement. French foreign minister Hubert Védrine said that the Commission's Communication was a good document but did not leave a big enough margin and should have a tighter financial framework. One diplomat said that the Commission left them no tactical margin for negotiating with the candidate countries, while the Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh saw the Commission's proposals as a bit too generous.
Germany and France carried on as they had done at the technical level but challenging the 2004 reference date selected by the Commission for deciding on the budget for enlargement to 10 new Member States (rather than the 2002 date set in Berlin when enlargement to 6 new countries was on the cards). Mr Védrine said it was important to know where they were starting from and where they were heading. Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen told journalists that the financial package's starting point was the years 2002, 2003 and 2004, but changes would have to be made because enlargement would cover ten countries rather than six and they had been proposing less money for six than for ten, which nobody could contest.
Franco-German agreement stopped short of the debate on the funding of agriculture policy for enlargement; Hubert Védrine said he was prepared to consider the payment of direct aid to candidate country farmers (he was less forthcoming about structural aid), while Joschka Fisher highlighted the sheer cost of such an operation, saying that the question was who was going to fund enlargement and it would be very expensive to both keep things as they were and accept new Member States. In a bilateral meeting with his French counterpart, Joschka Fisher reportedly explained that the cost of enlargement would inevitably impact on the CAP. Germany favoured the idea put forward by the Dutch, calling for a guaranteed gradual phasing out of all direct agricultural aid, to be pledged in a declaration at the next EU Summit, for example. Dutch minister Jozias van Aartsen outlined this idea in a letter to the President of the Council of Ministers since he was unable to take part in the Caceres meeting himself.
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Germany and the Netherlands point out that no direct aid was foreseen in Berlin. Moreover, direct aid was designed to compensate farmers for falling prices but this was not a problem faced by the candidates.
Commissioner Verheugen defended the politics of his proposal, saying that the candidate countries' joining the direct aid system was required to strengthen the hand of the pro-Europeans in those countries. It is impossible politically to negotiate without direct aid, explained his spokesperson Jean-Christophe Filori, adding that it was a question of giving the farmers 25% (rather than 100%) of the direct aid granted to current Member State farmers. Günter Verheugen told journalists that the issue was controversial on both sides since the candidate countries argue the Commission's proposals are too niggardly. Polish politicians would be lacking in common sense if they refused the entire financial package for Poland (EUR 13 billion between 2004 and 2006) because they are not happy with the EUR 1.3 billion in direct aid, he asserted. Arguing strongly in favour of the Commission's line, Belgian minister Louis Michel called for solidarity, highlighting that the EU's proposal for the candidate countries had to be politically coherent. We can't pull out all the stops in the technical negotiations for 18 months, forcing Member States and especially candidate countries to make unprecedented efforts and then refuse the finance that the Member States themselves have to carry out their policies, asserted the Belgian minister.
In terms of methodology, the countries defending direct aid refrained from making a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy a condition for the enlargement negotiations. Nobody said that the CAP had to be reformed before enlargement, stated Commissioner Verheugen, saying that as far as he was concerned, it was clear that there could not be a binding link between reforming the CAP and the enlargement negotiations, even if several politicians were drawing such a link. There is no conditionality between the mid-term review of the Common Agricultural Policy (due to begin in June 2002) and enlargement - reform is important but not a precondition, a diplomat reported Joschka Fischer as commenting. British foreign minister Jack Straw, like his Irish counterpart Brian Cowen, pointed out that it would be premature to launch discussions on agricultural policy post-2006. Brian Cowen said it would be a waste of time to speculate on the situation after 2006. One shouldn't imagine that the big reform of the CAP is going to begin this year - it won't start until after 2006, explained the Danish foreign minister Mogens Lykkestoft.
The President of the EU Council of Ministers, Josep Pique, resumed by saying that no country has yet said that it is going to cut its contributions. He said the Financial Perspectives would be scrupulously observed and the mid-term review of the CAP was scheduled for June - everything had to be considered at the appropriate time. The Commission's proposals were broadly welcomed, and the timetable, objectives and strategy were not challenged, argued Günter Verheugen, noting that even if there are still question marks, there has not been any fundamental disagreement.