BY CARL-ERIK ISACCSSON
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The European Union (EU) meeting in Luxembourg December 12-13 with heads of government from EU member states had been touted as a historic meeting that would issue formal invitations to several states in Eastern and Central Europe to join the EU in the coming years. Instead, the debate at the meeting centered largely on another question, the "euro club."

Paris, backed by Bonn, had proposed that the finance ministers of the 11 states that are expected to join the European Monetary Union (EMU) on Jan. 1, 1999, set up a separate forum within the EU to discuss questions concerning the euro, as the projected single currency is called. British prime minister Anthony Blair strongly opposed this scheme, as did the heads of the governments in Denmark, Sweden, and Greece, who demanded that their finance ministers should have the right to participate in these meetings as well.

A face-saving compromise for these governments - the four EU members who have stated that they will not participate in the single currency at the start - was negotiated during the meeting. The wording of the compromise says that the council of all the 15 EU finance ministers shall remain the sole body making economic policy decisions. But it made clear that EMU members will have the last word on the agenda of their forum and on which countries shall take part. All 15 member states are to be allowed to participate when there are matters of common interest on the agenda. The compromise was worked out under threats by the likely EMU members to meet informally outside the EU treaty if the deal were blocked.

Which governments will be allowed to join the EU was also a point of dispute. With Washington's backing, the governments of Sweden and Denmark have been campaigning to start negotiations simultaneously with 11 of the 12 applicants for membership in the EU. The European Commission proposed that membership negotiations should start just with Cyprus, Estonia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovenia, with the others waiting for a later round. All of the current EU member states have shoved aside the Turkish government's application for membership in the trade block. But Stockholm and Copenhagen wanted to include the governments of Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia in the initial round of talks. Their campaign is especially focused on having all the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -enter the European Union as soon as possible.

This intersects with Washington's drive to expand NATO into these same states. The diverging imperialist interests in the region - economic, political, and military -are the key factors behind the EU conflicts over which countries should be taken into the Union. The EU summit reached a compromise over this question that leaves open practically all of the disputed questions. Membership talks will start with the six states proposed by the European Commission in March next year. At a meeting scheduled just before these talks, the governments of the other five applicants - Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Romania - will begin a negotiations process over the standards they will have to reach to start membership negotiations, as well as how to attain them. In theory, if states in the second group reach these standards faster than states in the first, they could join the EU ahead of schedule.

The EU meeting reportedly just touched on the main underlying questions of the enlargement of the Union - the budget question - and especially the changes proposed by the European Commission on the system of agricultural and regional subsidies and how much each member should pay. "The meeting soon got stuck in Spanish-French-Portuguese worries over losing subsidies, and others fears over having to pay more," the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet wrote on December 14.

Another question that threatens to block enlargement is the Turkish government's objections to the decision by EU to start membership negotiations with Cyprus. Ankara says it is a more qualified applicant for membership in the European Union than the Eastern European and Central European states the EU now is starting membership negotiations with. But its application is especially opposed by Bonn and Athens. It is a member of the western military alliance NATO and has had an association agreement with the European Union since 1963 and applied for membership in 1985. In 1995 the European Union promised the Greek government that membership negotiations should start with Cyprus if Athens accepted that EU formed a customs union with Turkey, and one was established the following year.

The southern portion of Cyprus is ruled by a Greek-backed regime, and thousands of Greek troops are stationed there. The northern portion of the island nation is occupied by Turkish forces. Participants in the EU summit agreed to start membership negotiations with a delegation led by the Greece- Cypriot government, but invite representatives of Turk-Cypriots to participate.

Instead of taking up Ankara's application for membership, the EU invited the Turkish government to participate in a European conference on narcotic-trafficking, refugees, and other issues. Ankara rejected this plan and demanded at least pre-negotiations on membership. Turkish prime minister Mesut Yilmaz refused to attend the dinner that ended the EU meeting December 13. The next day declared that his government would freeze its political contacts with the EU, including negotiations over Cyprus, and seek a "strategic partnership" with Washington.

Carl-Erik Isacsson is a member of the metalworkers union in Sodertalje, Sweden.  
 
 
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