15 - 21 June 2000

Candidates warned against expecting dates

by Franco Aloisio

The European Union told eastern European and Mediterranean candidate countries they should not count on the bloc setting a target date for ending its expansion talks when EU leaders meet in December.

The EU's enlargement commissioner Gunther Verheugen told a press conference at the start of a new round of negotiations with 12 hopefuls it would be premature to mull setting a target date before he assesses the candidates' progress in early November. Six front running candidates - Cyprus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Estonia - entered membership talks in March 1998 and are clamouring for EU leaders to set a target date when they and the EU meet in Nice in December. The Eualso met the six countries which entered membership talks in February - Malta, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania, which are still negotiating the easiest issues.

Mr Verheugen told a joint press conference with the 12 candidate countries, including Malta, it would make no sense to mull dates, before the EU executive assesses how well front running candidates are doing in its November progress reports.

"It makes no sense to ask about dates, it's meaningless to do that today before we know the findings of the next progress reports," he said.

He promised that the EU, in a bid to move the talks forward, would set out what he described as a "road map" in the second half of the year detailing what candidates have to do.

In a sign of the front-runners' determination to receive a date, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan said his country was set on receiving an indication of when talks will close when EU leaders meet in Nice.

At separate negotiating sessions starting with Cyprus, the EU was to open talks on the only remaining and most difficult issue of agriculture with the six front-runners.