July 12, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1, 1423

BRUSSELS: A proposed overhaul of the European Union’s farm subsidies has given a boost to its eastern enlargement plans by alleviating some fears over the cost of expansion, diplomats and analysts said.

Although the EU Commission’s plan to shake up the Union’s farm system is likely to be tamed in horse-trading among EU members, it should make it easier for the EU to wrap up accession talks with the 10 hopefuls this year, they said.

The blueprint should address, partly at least, concern by EU net payers such as Germany, that the bloc’s farm aid budget will not balloon to unmanageable levels after the poor, mostly east European countries join, one EU diplomat said.

And if proposals to shift much EU aid to rural development schemes from direct subsidies to farmers survive an internal EU battle, the joiners’ overmanned and often inefficient farm sectors will be much easier to integrate.

“The Commission’s proposal will have a positive side effect — it will make enlargement easier,” said the EU Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler.

Politicians said Fischler’s plan, presented on Wednesday

Amid strong criticism from France and the EU’s farm union, increases the chance for the EU to agree on principles of future farm reforms by the end of the year.

Germany and the Netherlands have made it clear that they will give their go-ahead for enlargement at the EU’s December summit in Copenhagen, only if it also agrees on a “road-map” for cutting costs of the bloc’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

“The Commission’s proposal is an important step forward in the EU debate on CAP reform,” the EU diplomat said.

FRANCO-GERMAN BATTLE: But the struggle to cut costs of the CAP, which eats nearly half of the EU’s 95 billion euro annual budget, is sure to be fierce as France, the system’s main beneficiary, is strongly opposed to reform.

Some candidates voiced fears that the Franco-German battle over reforms could delay enlargement, although they said it was hard to imagine the historic end of the Cold War-era divide in Europe may be jeopardized by narrow national interests.

The EU’s 15 governments decided last year that in 2004, up to 10 countries might join — the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, Malta and Cyprus. Bulgaria and Romania are expected to join later in the decade.

The candidates welcomed Fischler’s plan, saying it offered their farm sectors better accession terms than previous plans. As a result, some diplomats said, it may be easier to reach a compromise in tough farm negotiations due in November.

Under the Commission’s proposal, farmers in the candidate countries would wait less than was first thought to get the same aid as those in current members.

CANDIDATES HAPPY: Fischler said farmers in the new member states would receive the same level of direct aid from the EU in 2011 and not in 2013 as originally envisaged.

The candidates also like the Commission’s blueprint because it would save them hundreds of million of euros in expenses for the EU-compatible systems to meticulously measure farm output.

Such systems could be much simplified by Fischler’s proposal to cut the link between aid to farmers and food output.

The Commission plans to plough more money into low intensity farming and rural development would help the candidates, especially Poland, to modernize their agricultural sectors.—Reuters