Strasbourg, 11/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - The President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, and the President in Office of the Council, Georges Papandreou, are due to meet on Tuesday evening to discuss the risks to the enlargement timetable of various budgetary issues. Unless these questions are resolved quickly, the Parliament could be forced to delay the adoption of its assent, scheduled for 9 April, to the signature of the Accession Treaty in Athens on 16 April. It is clear that the Parliament does not wish to blame the enlargement process, but, as Mr Cox said, it appears to him absolutely "essential that the rule of law is respected".
Following a letter from the President of the Budgetary Commission, Terry Wynn, who expressed concerns about the legality of the financial sums included in the Accession Treaty (particularly annex XV) by the Copenhagen European Council, the EP President had written to the President of the European Council, Costas Simitis, to ask him to set up a three-way meeting. He has not, however, received a reply. The problems are as follows: 1) the Copenhagen decisions did not respect the inter-institutional agreement on the financial perspectives, and impeded the Parliament's exercise of its prerogatives in terms of the future annual budgetary procedures; 2) the ceilings that were introduced could endanger the funding of various policies; 3) these decisions led to inequality of treatment between the current and future Member States. This assessment has just been confirmed by an opinion of the Parliament legal services, which states that the financial decisions taken in Copenhagen run counter to the Treaty.