EU enlargement 'irreversible'

2001-06-12 20:11

Emma Thomasson

Freiburg, Germany - Germany and France planned to declare strong support for EU enlargement on Tuesday after Ireland's rejection of the Nice Treaty in a referendum threw a new obstacle in the path of eastward expansion.

Leaders of the two countries meeting in the southwest German town of Freiburg were expected to issue a declaration stressing that there must be no delay to the bloc taking in new members.

"We want to make clear that the enlargement process is irreversible," a German government source said after talks between Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

The rejection of the Nice Treaty by 54 percent of Irish voters has cast a cloud over an EU summit in Gothenburg starting on Friday that is expected to announce that enlargement negotiations should be completed by the end of 2002.

The source said Germany and France expected that Ireland would be able to repeat its referendum on the Nice Treaty next year and said last week's shock vote should not hold up the EU's plans to take in up to a dozen new members in coming years.

"A time delay will not be expected and also no new negotiations," the German source said.

A French source agreed: "We want to convey a message that we have confidence in the Union to overcome these difficulties."

Franco-German motor still running

After discord between the EU's two heavyweights upset the last EU summit in Nice in December, the leaders were likely to seek to play down mounting differences between Paris and Berlin about where Europe should go next.

Jospin recently rejected calls by Schroeder for a more federal EU, with more power for the European Commission at the expense of the Council of Ministers, stressing that France wanted to see nation states remain in the driving seat of Europe.

Although analysts see little chance of the two sides making much progress on such controversial issues before elections in France early next year and in Germany in the second half of 2002, Berlin played up areas of agreement.

"Contrary to what certain commentators are saying, the German-French motor is intact and functions in the direction of Europe taking further steps forward," the German source said.

Sources said Berlin and Paris were considering issuing a joint Franco-German letter on how to manage the debate around Europe's future ahead of the Laaken summit in December which will mark the end of a six-month presidency by Belgium.

A German source said the letter was likely to focus on areas where Berlin and Paris are closest, such as pooling more power in the EU in areas like economic and finance policy, internal security and justice and foreign and security affairs.

While the two sides were also likely to stress their joint commitment to the 1997 Kyoto accord on global warming and efforts to promote non-proliferation of ballistic weapons, France was unable to get Germany to move on negotiations over the A400M military transport aircraft they both want to buy.

In a declaration issued in Freiburg, the two nations said they would state their intention to buy the A400M at the Le Bourget airshow near Paris next week, but the German official said no deal was sealed over the 73 planes it wants.

EADS, the majority shareholder of Airbus Industrie that will build the A400M, said this month Germany was the only country still to agree to the deal and said it had offered special terms to Berlin to pay for development costs on delivery.

France has warned that any wavering from the A400M project could endanger Europe's plans to establish a rapid reaction force of 60 000 troops by 2003, but Germany has said it will not be pressured in such sensitive negotiations.

Germany, France, Spain, Britain, Turkey, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Luxembourg are expected to order a total of around 220 A400M planes to come into service from 2007.

- Reuters