Global Policy Forum

The European Union and 10 candidate countries Friday agreed terms for a historic enlargement of the EU deep into ex-Soviet territory at a hard-fought summit in Copenhagen.

Turkey grudgingly accepted a delay to its own long-running membership drive as months of tough haggling culminated in the agreement for the EU's biggest and most ambitious expansion yet.

"For the first time in history Europe will become one because unification is the free will of its people," said European Commission President Romano Prodi. "Accession of 10 new member states will bring an end to the divisions in Europe."

The breakthrough came after Germany, the EU's traditional paymaster, said an extra one billion euros (dollars) was on offer to appease the candidates despite the EU insisting for weeks that no more money would be forthcoming.

Poland, the biggest of the 10 candidates and heavily dependent on agriculture, finally came on board after its demands for better terms sent the summit into overtime. With a financial deal in the bag, leaders of the 15-nation EU were to declare an emphatic end to Cold War divisions by extending invitations to the 10 hopefuls to join in May 2004.

"Our common wish is to make Europe a continent of democracy, freedom, peace and progress," leaders of all 25 nations were set to announce, according to a draft statement. "The Union will remain determined to avoid new dividing lines in Europe and to promote stability and prosperity within and beyond the new borders of the Union," the statement said. "Our aim is One Europe."

But a new fault-line opened up after the EU leaders rejected a push by key US ally Turkey to start EU accession negotiations next year. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the leaders late Thursday agreed to decide only in December 2004, on the basis of an evaluation of Turkey's reform progress, whether to start the membership talks. Turkey's initial reaction was furious but was tempered later with Prime Minister Abdullah Gul vowing to stay on track to join the EU by pushing through far-reaching reforms.

"Turkey's route is definite, be it democracy reforms, be it human rights reforms or economic reforms. All of them are being done for the Turkish people. This is what matters and these reforms will continue," he said. But Gul added: "The date and the time is not as we wished." In their draft conclusions, the EU leaders called on Turkey "to pursue energetically its reform process", adding that the EU's "irreversible" enlargement process would eventually take in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia are all in the first wave of the enlargement scheduled for 2004, with Bulgaria and Romania hoping to join three years later.

Poland, which needs to convince its large farming community to back the country's entry at a referendum next year, fought tooth and nail at the summit and its eventual agreement saw the other nine candidates fall into line. EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten said: "EU enlargement without Poland would be a Europe missing a very important limb."

The EU summit agreed to stump up 40.42 billion euros to finance enlargement over 2004-2006, equating to about 25 euros for every citizen of the current EU.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs said shortly before the deal came through that the EU should capitalise on the upcoming festive season.

"Christmas is coming closer and closer and maybe in the evening we will get some nice Christmas gifts," he said.

There had been hopes that the showpiece gathering in the Danish capital could see a deal to end the 28-year division of EU candidate Cyprus. But the Greek Cypriots said the last-ditch talks here brokered by the United Nations had ended without an agreement with their Turkish-Cypriot rivals.

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