European Union foreign ministers will discuss the funding for enlargement of the EU this week, following Ireland's ratification of the Nice Treaty on Saturday. The vote in favour of the treaty opens the way for 75 million Eastern Europeans from 10 nations including Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to join the trading bloc
The European Commission has welcomed Ireland's Yes to Nice vote but Commission President Romano Prodi said that the EU had "some very busy weeks ahead". Officials in Brussels want to wrap up all discussions when the 15 EU leaders meet at a summit on 24 October, ahead of the Copenhagen summit in December, when the final decision on enlargement is scheduled to be made. One of the major stumbling blocks will be the Common Agricultural Policy, with EU heavyweights France and Germany at loggerheads over the latter's call for the farm aid programme to be scaled back
According to the European Commission's recent "progress report", 10 of the 13 candidate countries for entrance to the EU - Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia - will be ready to join the trading bloc in 2004. //www.fxcentre.com