Brussels, 04/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - The Chief Negotiator for Poland in the EU membership talks, Jan Truszczynski, said on Monday that he was cautiously optimistic about the eventuality that Poland would, during final negotiations at the Copenhagen Summit, be offered more advantageous financing than the "financial package" offered by the Fifteen during the European Council in Brussels, especially regarding aid to farm income, farm production quotas and the future Polish contribution to the EU budget.
"After today's discussions, I can say there is an additional margin of manoeuvre for discussing and improving the European Union's offer", Mr Truszczynski told the press on Monday after a bilateral session with the Danish EU President and the European Commission. Nonetheless, the Polish negotiator warned: "even if there is this margin of manoeuvre, we cannot expect miracles". Officially, Poland continues to call for the ten year transitional period (offered by the EU but not reaching a 100% level of direct farm aid to farmers of the new Member States until 2013) to be considerably reduced and for the level of departure for direct payments in 2004 to be higher than the 25% proposed by the Fifteen. Given the very tight financial framework fixed by the Heads of Government of the EU, the candidates (including Poland) seem to be quite realistic in acknowledging the fact that the ceiling for agricultural expenditure cannot be substantially modified and that, as a result, additional aid possibilities for farmers' income should be found under other agricultural headings or, possibly, through cuts in spending for regional policy (it is known that the overall offer made by the EU for structural aid from 2004-2006 was reduced by EUR 2.5 billion compared to the 25.5 billion proposed by the Commission). At any rate, after Monday's meeting, Mr Truszczynski announced the Fifteen's "real willingness" to explore all existing possibilities in the various agricultural instruments available in order to prevent farmers of the new members having to see their incomes fall after accession.
The aim of the bilateral meetings that the Danish EU Presidency has held since the beginning of last week with all 10 candidate countries of the first wave was to identify and define the last outstanding questions in negotiations and to review the arguments put forward by the different parties on these issues, in order to have a clear and detailed overall view of the situation at the time of entering the last phase of talks.
As far as Poland is concerned, Monday's meeting covered the chapters on budget (Poland continues to favour "phasing in" its budgetary contribution), agriculture (including the veterinary and phytosanitary part, which is still open), competition policy (Poland and Hungary being the only ones of the ten first wave candidates not to have concluded negotiations on this chapter, but Mr Truszczynski felt it was "reasonably realistic" to assume that the chapter could be closed during the next ministerial negotiating meeting scheduled for 18 November), and taxation and environment (the chapter is provisionally closed, but Warsaw calls for a new transitional period for polluting emissions authorised for some large combustion plants). Mr Truszczynski pointed out that a further bilateral meeting with the Danish Presidency and the Commission is to take place next week.