Countdown to Copenhagen

With just days to go before European leaders converge in Copenhagen on Dec. 12, the European Union has been holding last-ditch talks with the candidate countries in Brussels, hoping to reach agreement on key terms of enlargement.

But despite a new offer put forward by the Danish EU Presidency, haggling over financial subsidies looks set to spill over into the Copenhagen meeting, with four of the 10 candidates saying the proposal doesn't go far enough.

The new package goes further than the terms previously agreed upon in October. It leaves unchanged a plan agreed in Brussels that from 2004, candidate countries should get agricultural aid at a starting level of 25 percent of what current member states receive. But the Danish plan offers the additional possibility of transfering a proportion of funds for rural development to direct payments, potentially boosting them from 25 to 40 percent.

The new proposal also includes an offer of an additional lump sum for one of the four Visegrad countries, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Over the weekend, the prime ministers of the Visegrad Four announced that they intended to put up a united front in Copenhagen on questions of agricultural subsidies and other financial issues.

Poland's Prime Minister, Leszek Miller (photo left, with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder), said it was important that the V4 speak with one voice in order to achieve the best possible accession terms. Poland last week had voiced strong opposition to the package, saying it wanted cash payouts from the EU rather than direct support for farming.

EU member countries are split over the Danish proposal. Belgium has given its support for the package. France has also agreed to support the plan despite some reservations on the agriculture section.

Though Germany, the biggest contributor to the EU budget, opposes the plan, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is expected to give his support to the proposal as a basis for negotiations.

The Turkey question

The question of future membership for Turkey is also shaping up to be a key issue at the two-day summit. The question whether to admit Turkey has divided the 15 members, with some insisting Ankara must implement more democractic reforms before accession negotiations can begin.

The head of the EU's constitutional convention, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, has retreated from controversial remarks that Turkish entry would mean "the end of the European Union". Giscard told the French newspaper "Le Figaro" the first priority was to "create a European Europe, and afterwards we will see."

The former French president had said earlier that Turkey was not European and that supporters of its candidacy were "adversaries of the European Union".

Securing a date

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, has added to speculation about whether Turkey will be given a date at the Copenhagen summit to begin EU accession negotiations.

After meeting with the leader of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, Tayyip Erdogan (photo), Rasmussen said Turkey would be offered a date for opening accession negotiations once it had fulfilled the necessary criteria on political and human rights.

Turkey’s new government, which has been lobbying hard to get a firm date to start accession talks at the Copenhagen summit, has now said it will accept a delay of six months until the next European summit in June 2003.

Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul had said his country was losing patience at being left "in limbo" and angrily rejected a Franco-German proposal to start talks in 2005. Italy, Greece, Spain and Britain believe Turkey should be allowed to begin membership negotiations by January 2004.

Erdogan himself says he believes Turkey has a 50 percent chance of securing a date in Copenhagen. He says he hopes a meeting this week with U.S. President George W. Bush will help boost Turkey's chances of early accession to the EU. Washington has said setting a date now would encourage political reform in Turkey and make it easier to reunite Cyprus.

Hope for Cyprus resolution

Efforts to broker a peace settlement for Cyprus are also certain to be high on the agenda in Copenhagen.

Initial hopes that Greek and Turkish Cypriots would agree on an interim deal in the final days before the summit now seem unlikely to be fulfilled. Diplomats had been urging the leaders of the divided island to unite, saying they had an unprecedented opportunity to bring peace to Cyprus and to enhance Turkey's EU bid.

Doing the hard yards

Denmark's Rasmussen, who is hosting the summit, has urged candidate countries not to make too many demands, saying that if the talks are not concluded by the week's end, enlargement could be delayed for several more years.

"We are prepared to conclude negotiations with the candidate countries that are ready," Rasmussen said. "No candidate country should wait for the others."