All eyes on Copenhagen as EU enlargement enters final phase
The cleaners were busy vacuuming the carpets at Copenhagen's Bella Centre this morning, ahead of the decisive EU enlargement summit in the Danish capital which begins on Thursday. The summit could go down as one of the stormiest in the EU's history - members and candidates, including the Czech Republic, are still haggling over the terms of enlargement, and negotiations could continue well into the weekend. My colleague Rob Cameron is also getting ready for a busy week in Copenhagen - when do you think you'll actually be able to come back home to Prague Rob?
But surely the EU 15 and the candidate countries have had months to sort out the final deal on enlargement - isn't it just a case of rubber-stamping what's already been agreed?
"Well problem is they haven't agreed on the really important stuff, and the important stuff is of course the financial terms of enlargement - how much money the new members will get when they join the EU, or more specifically - how much less will they get than the existing members. The ten candidates for membership - the Czech Republic among them - say they'll continue to fight for the best possible deal right up to the signing of the Copenhagen Treaty. Denmark - which holds the rotating presidency of the EU - has warned them to take what's on offer or risk delaying the whole enlargement process, possibly by years."
And I gather there are differences of opinion not just between the EU on one hand and the candidates on the other, but also among the member states and the candidates themselves?
"That's right. The so-called Visegrad Four - the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians - originally agreed to present a united front to the EU on getting the best deal on farm subsidies. But the Poles broke ranks last week, saying they'd accept the farming subsidies Brussels was offering, causing some anger among the others. Now they say they're all friends again, but we could see some heated discussions among the candidates."
And among the EU members themselves?
"Yes, there are problems there as well. Fundamentally, the EU's "net contributors" - i.e. the countries that pay more into the EU than they get out of it - are saying the Danes have been too generous to the candidates. Germany for one says it simply can't afford to subsidise Polish farmers when its own economy is in such a mess."
But do you think they will - in the end - reach an agreement?
"I think so, or at least I think they will agree on the money side of things. The problem is there are other seemingly intractable issues to be resolved - what to do about the divided island of Cyprus, also a candidate? Should Turkey be given a date to begin accession talks? There are simply so many agreements to hammer out at Copenhagen, I doubt I'll be packing my bags until Sunday night."
