Notes for the Thread:
EU Chief Warns Over Budget Wrangle
By PAUL AMES
.c The Associated Press
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- European Union leaders must resolve their differences over finances or risk delaying plans to admit new members, the EU's chief executive said Wednesday.
Jacques Santer, president of the EU's executive agency, said he doubted the 15 leaders would resolve their complex budget battle at a summit Friday. But he said they must do so by a late March deadline.
''The credibility of the European Union is at stake,'' he told reporters ahead of the conference outside Bonn, Germany.
He said failure to resolve differences over revamping the EU's $93.5 billion annual budget could postpone plans to admit new members from eastern Europe.
''We could be headed for a delay of not only several months, but several years,'' he warned.
The EU leaders have given themselves until another summit, on March 24-25 in Berlin, to end the dispute over finances during the 2000-2006 period, when up to half of the dozen candidate nations are expected to join.
Richer nations, led by Germany, want to freeze the budget and cut their contributions, arguing they pay far too much.
Spain and other poorer members, though, are demanding increases in the yearly $38.5 billion aid handouts. They fear they will lose out when even less well-off nations join. France is leading resistance to deep cuts in farm subsidies, which now account for half the EU budget.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, scheduled Friday's summit so the leaders can speak ''in complete frankness and confidentiality'' about the budget woes.
''This meeting is not about decisions,'' Schroeder wrote fellow leaders. In a speech to the German parliament, he hinted Germany would be prepared to compromise on the budget issue and told his conservative opponents not to ''demand the impossible.''
AP-NY-02-24-99 1628EST
|
