06 February 2004	Friday	14 Zilhaj 1424

BRUSSELS: The European Union is grappling with large difficulties as it prepares for enlargement on May 1. In the 10 new member states (Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) preparations for accession are well under way. European Union (EU) institutions are also preparing for the enlargement.

Following enlargement the European Commission (EC) which initiates and executes EU policies will take up a new term on November 1 for five years.

This will be a year of change for the three main pillars of the EU. Besides the EC, the European Council (the main decision-making body representing the member states) will take on a new look after enlargement. So will the European Parliament (the main legislative and budgetary authority with directly elected members) to which elections are due in June.

As new entrants stand on the doorstep, disagreements are brewing among present members over the EU constitution, budget, spending and growth. In this situation mere day-to-day running of the EU might prove critical, external relations commissioner Chris Patten said recently.

But with far-reaching changes on the cards, the EU is looking also to long-term policy matters.

"March will be an important rendezvous point when we will present our report on the future EU constitution for which all have collective responsibility," Irish foreign minister Brian Cowen said at the EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels last month. Ireland holds the rotating EU presidency for the first half of this year.In his spring 2004 report address to the European Parliament last month, EC president Romano Prodi reaffirmed the agreement at the European Council meeting at Lisbon in 2000 to make the EU "the most competitive, knowledge- based economy in the world by 2010."

But Prodi has warned that weak results so far in research and innovation, education and competitiveness call for more efforts.

EU officials are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the high agenda set in Lisbon and with its virtual non-implementation by member states. This raises questions about the future of the agenda in the context of the upcoming enlargement.

Resources available to meet those aims lie at the heart of the matter. And wide divergences show up here.

The new countries will receive about 86 billion dollars in their first year, and pay back about 4 billion dollars.

Cyprus, Malta and Slovenia have per capita income about 70 per cent of the EU average. The other seven have on average 40 per cent.

The persistently high unemployment rate, highest in Poland at 21 per cent, and lowest in Slovenia at 6.4 per cent is expected to add to other obstacles to growth like falling birth rate and emigration.

Commissioner for the regions Michel Barnier has warned that increased expenditure for the regions, the budgets for research, justice, home affairs and administration, and big cuts in farming are likely to spark a debate between poor new beneficiaries and established rich contributors.

Barnier said he is hopeful that the new member states will channel resources in the right direction, into technology and human resources.

With 75 million more consumers emerging in the enlarged EU, economists point also to trade benefits and increase in stock value and economic growth that low production costs in the new states can bring. They project for instance a rise between 0.5-0.75 per cent for Germany.

Inevitably, the old and the new have different ways of looking at what should be common goals. In his assessment of the progress made by acceding states, enlargement commissioner Guenther Verheugen noted major improvements in the economic field and in the implementation of community law, but he spoke also of the need to fight corruption.

On the other hand Peter Balasz, the Hungarian representative at the Convention on the future of Europe which has been drafting the EU constitutional treaty said he is happy with the work of the Convention so far, but would like to see more efficiency, transparency, democracy and unity within the Union. -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.