Toward A Larger Union?

European Union leaders said Friday they hoped the western bloc would admit its first new members from beyond the old Iron Curtain in time for the next European Parliament elections in June 2004.

The stronger-than-expected message on the likely timing of the EU's eastward expansion was contained in conclusions agreed midway through a key EU summit in this French Riviera city.

France stressed that the message did not amount to the kind of deadline or target date impatient former communist-bloc countries have been seeking in their race to join the EU.

"We can't set deadlines. We can't set dates," French President Jacques Chirac told a news conference after EU leaders mapped out the expansion plan.

"There's no commitment to the first enlargement, there's no commitment on date," he added.

The move came a day after EU leaders met the heads of 13 candidate countries and promised to conclude internal reforms to enable the bloc to almost double in size in the next decade.

The leaders said an EU summit in Gothenburg next June under Sweden's chairmanship would decide on the next steps in the expansion plan.

Six countries — Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus — that entered talks back in March 1998 had hoped EU leaders would set a concrete target date in Nice for ending their tough EU negotiations.

They have set themselves January, 2003, as an entry target date, but doubts have been expressed about whether any expansion will take place before 2005.

Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria and Romania have also been in EU talks since February of this year. They are less advanced but some are catching up fast.

Turkey also has candidate status but must carry out far-reaching political and economic reforms to qualify for opening accession negotiations.

French European Affairs Minister Pierre Moscovici told reporers the leaders had agreed that negotiations with the most advanced candidates countries should be concluded by the end of 2002, "with the perspective that they would take part in the European Parliament elections in 2004."

But he stressed this was "a perspective, not a commitment."

In the conclusions, a draft of which was made available to reporters, the leaders pledged to inject "fresh impetus" into the 15-nation EU's ambitious plan to admit a dozen mainly former communist countries.

The leaders approved a "road map" laying out what the EU needs to do in negotiations with candidate countries over 2001 and 2002 if it is to be ready on time. It urged candidates to "continue and speed up the necessary reforms" for entry.

They then moved on to tackle crucial internal reforms designed to allow the EU to accommodate the new members without paralyzing its creaking decision-making system, designed for a community of six nations in the 1950s.

Germany and France are arguing over how many votes they should have in EU policymaking; Britain wants to retain a veto in social security and defense and France in decisions covering trade in services. Spain wants a veto over regional aid spending, and the Dutch grumble that they want far more votes than the Belgians.

Additionally, the already top-heavy, 20-member executive EU Commission must be trimmed, and the leaders must also endorse the idea of a "two-speed Europe" whereby the most integration-minded nations push forward without laggards holding them back.

Failure to approve the Nice reform package, the biggest EU overhaul since the 1991 Maastricht Treaty, would almost certainly delay enlargement.

In other business, the EU leaders endorsed plans for a 60,000-man rapid-reaction force and set up political and military panels to run it.

Afterwards, they sought to assure the United States the force was no go-it-alone act that would undermine the NATO alliance. Its aim is to give EU the ability to run peacekeeping operaions in cases when NATO as a whole decides not to get involved.

U.S. officials fear this is at odds with NATO's own planning for post-Cold War threats.