Copenhagen, 12/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - "Enlargement could still be derailed and held up for several years", Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned on Wednesday evening after the Summit of European Liberals. The Danish Prime Minister stressed it will be necessary to have "political determination and a good dose of realism to achieve the target of membership by ten new Member States" at the Copenhagen Summit. Member States consider that the Presidency's proposals of compromise are "at the limit" of what can be proposed and, "some believe they go too far", he told candidate countries. "It is time to close negotiations, to accept concessions …, enlargement is worth it", he added. The Presidency hopes to prevent this "historic moment from being overshadowed by technical questions" such as milk quotas or lynx and bear hunting. It expects "tough negotiations with a few candidate countries". On the subject of the requests put forward by several Member States in recent days (milk quotas for Portugal, for example), Mr Rasmussen said he was certain that none of them would block enlargement for such claims which, he insisted, must be dealt with at another time.
Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Drnovsek recalled during the same press conference that the President of the European Council and himself were "still on opposite sides of the table" since Slovenia "has not accepted the Presidency compromise". Mr Drnovsek, however, is "convinced" that negotiations will end "in coming days". The President of the Party of European Liberals, Werner Hoyer, welcomed the fact that, at this "historic time", the Presidents of the Commission, the Parliament and the European Council are "Liberals".
In Copenhagen, the president of the Liberal Group at the European Parliament, Graham Watson, noted above all that it would be "ironic if Poland's inflexibility were to throw the process off course at this late stage". As far as Turkey is concerned, he felt that by setting a date now for the beginning of accession talks this would harm the EU's position with regards "future candidate countries such as Ukraine". Also, predicting that Turkey will respect the Copenhagen criteria in six months, he suggested that the date for starting talks should be announced at the end of Greek Presidency. Finally, he warned: "we must not underestimate the dangers of admitting to the Union only the Greek part of Cyprus. Not only would current difficulties remain unresolved, but we would store up new difficulties for the future".