Brussels, 16/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Monday evening the European Commission sent its draft common positions to nine of the ten candidate countries (not to Malta) in the "first wave" of accession in the main chapters on agriculture. While Commissioner Franz Fishchler's services appear willing to make these documents available to the press, EUROPE believes that Commissioner Günter Verheugen would use his veto to oppose this, out of respect for inter-institutional balance. Community sources said that the Commission had no institutional or legal role to play in enlargement negotiations and ought to help the Council set up a "basis to its work.".
As EUROPE indicated on 13 April on page 9, Mr Fischler's spokespeson repeated on Tuesday that the draft common positions for the different countries did not mean any "major changes" in relations to the direction of the note for framing enlargement funding or in the reflection document on candidate countries' integration into the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) adopted at the end of January. There will be a gradual introduction over ten years of direct Aid, which could see an increase in rural development aid and use of recent reference periods for deciding quotas. There will be a few technical amendments on the volumes of quotas for the new EU Member States, confirmed the spokesperson. The draft common positions were presented to an enlargement experts' group from the Council on Tuesday.