As the EU gets down to detailed accession negotiations with the applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe and Cyprus, external relations Commissioner Hans Van Den Broek sought to reassure MEPs that the process was on track and that the Commission's Agenda 2000 proposals would enable the EU to be expanded from 15 to 25 or 27 states in the coming years. The Commission calculates that natural economic growth in the fifteen coupled with substantial savings from the CAP and regional fund reforms will generate an extra €3 billion per annum.
This will be used in "pre-accession" aid designed to bring basic transport and social facilities in the countries concerned up to scratch over the 2000-2006 period. At the same time the Commission believes the EU will be able to stay within the present budgetary ceiling of 1.27 per cent of GNP. The Commissioner added that extra bilateral aid from the member states would mean a total of some €70 billion being available for enlargement.
However, many MEPs questioned whether this would be sufficient in view of the vast gap in wealth between countries in Eastern Europe and present EU member states. Regional Committee spokesman Ralf Walter (D, PES) pointed out that GDP per capita was an average only 35 per cent of the EU average and earlier in the month at the Brussels plenary session, Mr Van Den Broek, when presenting the Commission's progress report on the countries concerned, said it would cost between €50bn and €90bn to bring transport facilities alone up to Western standards. In addition, the costs of adapting legislation to the needs of the single market and other EU obligations - including monetary union - has to be taken into account. Mr Van Den Broek warned that progress on bringing legislation into line with EU requirements had been slow in the Czech Republic and Slovenia, two of the six countries singled out for membership in the first wave (the others are Poland, Hungary, Estonia and Cyprus). Otherwise the Commission confirmed that Hungary and Poland were in the lead with regard to economic developments and the introduction of a functioning market economy run on western lines.
Against this, Court of Auditors President Bernhard Friedmann has warned that in the current climate of instability on world markets following the crises in Asia and Russia, more drastic measures than those being proposed by the Commission for CAP reforms would be needed to stop costs overshooting. "In view of the current situation, the guarantee prices must be cut more sharply than the Commission has proposed, in order to prevent surpluses and the associated export refunds and storage costs," he said. And he added it was unrealistic for the Commission to propose just €500m in agricultural aid for the new member states. Direct farm payments of some €3.3bn should, he said, be envisaged.
But MEPs were anxious to emphasise the political importance of cementing Eastern Europe to the EU following the end of the cold war and placed considerable emphasis on consolidating democracy and the rule of law with respect for human rights. As Gary Titley (Greater Manchester West, PES) put it, "money is not superior to democracy", although he did warn there was a need to obtain support from EU citizens who were at present either indifferent or hostile to the whole process. In this context it was vital to ensure that funds used were clearly targeted and not caught up in a web of corruption. As he put it, "in view of the latest Commission scandals we must make sure that this project is not tainted by any doubts about how the money is managed."