The European Parliament Presidentm , Mr Pat Cox has warned that delays in bringing in new members to the EU could seriously harm the credibility of European leaders with another top EU official saying that enlargement would not create financial problems for the union.
In comments to be published in the Austrian magazine Profiltoday, Mr Cox said disagreements in the bloc over agriculture policy would not lead the EU "to impose new conditions for membership."
Cox's comments are in line with those of EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler who said yesterday that enlargement - planned for 2004 - "would not constitute a financial problem before 2006."
Mr Fischler's remarks follow warnings by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder who wrote in the Sunday edition of Frankfurter AllgemeineZeitung that his country would be unable to finance agricultural aid to future members of the EU.
The Commission - the EU's executive arm - has proposed that farmers in countries joining the EU be given direct payments amounting initially to just 25 per cent of what farmers in current EU members receive, rising to 100 percent over 10 years.
But Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have rejected the plan. While Mr Fischler applied his comments to economic considerations, Cox told the Austrian magazine Profilthat European leaders would pay a heavy political price if enlargement was delayed. "Candidate countries have undertaken an enormous transformation in their political systems and in their economies," Mr Cox said. "Since the fall of the Berlin Wall (in 1989), they were told that their entry would take place within the next five years. Now, it is a question of the credibility of European leaders. The time has come to realise those promises."
AFP