Mr Edmund Stoiber, challenger to be German chancellor, called today for new European Union members to get an equal share of EU funds to support poorer farmers and help underdeveloped regions.
"We can never allow for the EU to have two kinds of members - first-class and second-class," Mr Stoiber told the annual congress of Hungary's Fidesz Party, the senior partner in the country's ruling centre-right coalition.
The European Commission has offered candidate states a quarter of the direct farm aid existing members receive when they join the EU, probably in 2004. They would have to wait 10 years to get the full subsidies.
The proposal, to be discussed in the final, toughest stage of long-running accession talks later this year, has divided EU members, several of whom say the offer is too generous.
Mr Stoiber, set to challenge Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in September elections, said the transition period from joining the EU to gaining full subsidies was too long.