EU candidate countries' foreign ministers hold talks in Prague

Foreign ministers and deputy foreign ministers from the ten countries hoping to become members of the European Union in 2004 have held talks in Prague, at the invitation of the Czech foreign minister, Cyril Svoboda. Mr Svoboda said while the ten EU candidates did have their own specific national interests, certain matters were important to all of them, including budgetary issues and agricultural policy. Pavel Telicka, the Czech Republic's chief negotiator on accession, has said in the past that Czech farmers would have to accept lower subsidies than those received in existing EU countries.