EUROPEAN DIARY: The courtship between the EU and its poorer neighbours in central and eastern Europe is not unlike the elegant dance. While both sides express a profound commitment to one another, they remain just outside each other's reach, writes Denis Staunton
He was like a vast, hairy whale and she was the most delicate fairy in the forest. But when this unlikely couple began to dance, they became elegance itself.
His arms swept about her waist; they turned and she was circling him from behind. Sometimes they were back to back, at others they seemed about to embrace. But they never touched and all the time they stamped their feet to the steady, flamenco beat pounding from the speakers behind the bar.
We were in a late-night dive in Caceres, a 15th century city in western Spain where European Union foreign ministers were meeting over the weekend. The ministers were discussing, among other things, the uncomfortable question of how to pay for Europe's great historic project of enlargement to the east.
The courtship between the EU and its poorer neighbours in central and eastern Europe is not unlike the elegant dance in the Caceres bar. While both sides express a profound commitment to one another, they remain just outside each other's reach.
Enlargement was always going to be expensive, if only because incomes in the candidate countries are well below those in the EU. Regional aid and farm subsidies currently account for 80 per cent of the EU budget and simply extending the present system to new members when they join in 2004 would breach spending limits agreed by the member-states in Berlin three years ago.
The Commission last month presented a detailed plan for financing the first few years of enlargement, setting aside 25 billion euros for structural funds and 10 billion euros for farm subsidies between 2004 and 2006. Crucially, direct payments to eastern farmers would be phased in over 10 years, starting at just 25 per cent of the level paid to their western counterparts.
In Poland, where more than a quarter of the workforce lives on the land, the Commission's proposal was greeted with outrage. A few days before the foreign ministers' meeting in Spain, I was admiring a milking parlour owned by Andrzej Oledzki, a young farmer near the eastern Polish village of Ciechanowiec.
Mr Oledzki has worked hard to make his 40 hectare farm profitable and his 33 cows last year provided almost 200,000 litres of high quality milk. But he fears that the Commission's proposals would lead to a cut in his income by obliging him to compete with more heavily subsidised farmers in the west.
"If we open our borders, we are opening ourselves up to aggressive competition. I would not vote to join the EU on the basis of the present offer. The EU doesn't seem to be taking us seriously," he said.
Many Poles agree that the Commission's offer is inadequate, even if they acknowledge that less than half of the country's 1.8 million farms are viable. But as Poland's chief negotiator with the EU, Mr Jan Truszcynski, points out, a mi- llion farms cannot simply be wished out of existence.
"The agricultural sector has been acting as a cushion in recent years, absorbing excessive labour from the towns. We are confronted with a huge social problem," he said.
More than 3 million Poles, 17.4 per cent of the workforce, are unemployed and economic growth has fallen to just 1 per cent of GDP. Poland's new, centre-left government promises to boost growth by reducing red tape for businesses and encouraging investment.
The EU is already offering subsidies but Poland's administrative system is so weak that only 35 per cent of available funds are taken up. While Poles complain that the Commission's proposals for funding enlargement are miserly, Germany and some other net contributors to the EU budget say they are too generous.
Germany does not want to extend direct payments to eastern farmers at all. Other states, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, believe that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) should be reformed before enlargement proceeds. An experienced French politician summed up his country's position as follows: "We are happy to see enlargement proceed as long as Germany pays for it."
Ireland supports the Commission's proposal and rejects any link between enlargement negotiations and CAP reform.
The EU will agree a common position on paying for enlargement by the summer. Negotiations with the candidates are due to be completed by the end of the year. If all goes well (and the Nice Treaty is ratified) the first new members should join by 2004.
Between now and then, however, the dance between east and west will continue with lots of turns, twists and manoeuvres and much stamping of feet.