"For a long time, Portugal was looked upon with suspicion with
regards to enlargement,"said Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama
at a press conference marking the transition of the EU's rotating
presidency from Finland to Portugal at the start of the new year.
"There was a sense that Portugal was a selfish country that wanted to
get as much money as possible from Europe and did not want to
participate in the task of enlargement, because it feared it could
lose out. That was absolutely false, and it has taken us a few years
to correct this misinterpretation."
Since it joined the EU in 1985, Portugal's economic growth rates have
been fueled by a massive transfer of funds from Brussels intended to
help the country catch up to its more prosperous neighbors.
But with expansion, Portugal would lose its status as the poorest
country in the EU, and the focus of transfer funds would likely shift
eastwards.
The country would also lose its key economic advantage - the lowest
average wages in the EU. With the minimum wage set at roughly $315 a
month, Portugal has been able to convince many multinationals to set
up shop over the past 10 years, leading to one of the lowest
unemployment rates in Europe.
Still, Portugal±s leaders maintain that any concerns over eastern
expansion have been overcome.
"It is a fact that some of the candidate countries can be considered
competitors with Portugal in some areas,"said Portugal±s ambassador
to the EU, Fernando Neves. "Portugal has a strategic vision for its
foreign policy. The enlargement of the EU to include countries that
share with us the same values, the same principles and which are in
the geographic area of Europe, as is the case of the 13 candidate
countries, is one of our objectives. It is an objective that
guarantees peace in Europe.
"Portugal will work towards this goal [enlargement] independent of
other interests it may have,"he added.
During an EU summit held in Berlin last spring, Portugal, along with
its neighbor, Spain, which also receives substantial amounts of
regional aid from Brussels, finally agreed to receive less financial
aid in the future to pave the way for eastern expansion.
May give up appointment
Now authorities in Lisbon have indicated they want to use their term
at the helm of the EU to remove another key obstacle to enlargement.
Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Guterres indicated recently he would
be willing to waive his country's right to appoint at least one
commissioner in Brussels, as long as a new mechanism is found to
ensure small countries still have a voice in an expanded Union.
Member states currently appoint 20 commissioners who oversee
developments in areas as diverse as the environment to external
affairs. With only 15 member states now in the EU, each country has
the right to appoint at least one commissioner, with larger nations
such as Germany and France allowed to appoint more.
But with expansion, and a future Union of as many as 27 countries,
there would not be enough posts for everyone, leaving Brussels to
search for a new way to appoint commissioners before any new members
are admitted.
Prime Minister Guterres, who was named as a possible candidate for
the post of President of the European Commission last year, hopes his
gesture will help develop an agreement among member states during the
Portuguese presidency on a new way for making appointments to the
powerful commissioner posts.
"We will work to create the conditions that will speed up the arrival
at the necessary consensus,"Guterres told a reporter following his
first meeting with all 20 EU commissioners since Portugal assumed the
presidency.
Aside from launching entry talks with six more candidate countries,
Portugal has set a busy agenda for the next six months. Lisbon is
planning the first-ever summit between the EU and India in addition
to preparing for a round of trade talks between the United States and
Europe which will see U.S. President Bill Clinton come to Portugal in
June.
In March, Portugal has called for a special meeting of all 15 EU
member states to iron out a strategy to fight unemployment and turn
Europe into the most competitive economy in the world within the next
decade. A summit between members states and African nations,
originally scheduled for March, was put off at the last minute until
the second half of the year during the French presidency of the EU.
Agenda too ambitious?
This busy agenda has some of Portugal±s counterparts in the EU
concerned. Dutch Foreign Minister Jozias van Aartsen said this week
that Portugal has put too many issues on the agenda and would not be
able to deal with half of them.
Portuguese authorities shrugged off these concerns.
"We are glad he finds us ambitious,"said Neves at a press briefing at
the headquarters of the Portugese EU presidency which workers were
scrambling to complete more than a week after the country took over
the role from Finland.
"Portugal inherited these issues and must proceed to work on them."
Brussels began entry talks with Estonia and five other Eastern
European nations - Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic -
early last year.
Latvia and Lithuania, along with the remaining candidate countries of
the former Eastern Bloc, received their much desired invitation to
the negotiating table just last month at an EU conference held in
nearby Helsinki.
Formal negotiations with this second batch of applicants will begin
in February at a meeting to be held in Brussels.
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