Czech minister urges Ireland to vote for Nice

The Czech Foreign Minister has called on Irish voters to vote in favour of the Treaty of Nice in the forthcoming referendum. And Poland's Foreign Minister warned that an Irish rejection of the treaty could create complications on the road to EU enlargement.

The ministers were speaking after a meeting of EU foreign ministers and their counterparts from the candidate countries in the Swedish coastal town of Nykoping.

The Czech Republic's Mr Jan Kavan said the Nice Treaty was a crucial step towards enlargement of the EU because it removed the last institutional obstacles in the way. "If the Irish people vote against Nice, it would be very difficult for our people to understand the reasons and I hope it will not happen," he said.

Poland's Mr Wladyslaw Bartoszewski said he understood some EU member-states were unhappy with the outcome of last December's summit in Nice. But the treaty was a good deal for the candidate countries.

"We are broadly satisfied with the agreement. It would certainly create complications if the Irish were to vote against it," he said.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, who is recovering from injuries sustained in a traffic accident last week, was unable to attend the meeting in Nykoping. It was dominated by a dispute over demands by Germany and Austria that citizens from the candidate countries should have to wait for seven years after joining the EU before they could work in other member-states.

Spain, with the support of Greece and Portugal, said it would not agree to impose a delay on the free movement of people unless it was guaranteed access to regional funds after enlargement. Madrid fears that, once the candidate countries join the EU, Spain's income will be above the EU average, which would deprive it of cohesion funds.

Spain argues that the economic convergence thus achieved would be statistical rather than real and it will continue to need transfers from Brussels.

Germany's Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, rejected any connection between the two demands. He expressed support for a Commission proposal that would impose a seven-year transitional period on the free movement of labour but allow individual member-states to lift the restriction earlier if they wished.

"Enlargement is in the European interest and not a German project, but the financial room for manoeuvre is limited. The Commission proposal is a very balanced one. Anyone who wants to open [the labour market] earlier is able to do that, but we have to take the fears in Germany seriously. I have been talking to the unions and so I know what I am talking about," he said.

Sweden's Foreign Minister, Ms Anna Lindh, said she was optimistic the issue of free movement of labour would be resolved before the end of the Swedish EU presidency next month. The EU budget has been agreed until 2006 but officials indicated that Spain would receive assurances that its concerns about cohesion funds would be addressed in the next round of budget talks.