EU makes breakthrough on enlargement talks - Denmark
( 2002-10-25 16:08 ) (7 )

European Union leaders made a breakthrough toward agreeing a financial package to offer 10 candidate countries negotiating to join the bloc in 2004, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced Thursday.

He told a news conference after a working dinner of the 15 leaders that they had endorsed European Commission proposals to phase in direct farm payments to new member states from 2004 over a decade.

"Tonight we have experienced a real breakthrough," Rasmussen declared, saying a Franco-German agreement to curb farm spending from 2007 had helped clear the way for an agreed negotiating mandate for the final phase of enlargement talks.

That would keep the EU on track to conclude accession talks with Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta at a Copenhagen summit in mid-December.