AGENDA 2000: FARM SPENDING FREEZE WAITING IN THE WINGS.

The EU Member States have succeeded in making a small but significant step nearer to an agreement on the Agenda 2000 reform programme. This slight move forwards was achieved at the January 25 General Affairs Council. Apart from a procedural agreement, a meeting of minds emerged on the need to lower the farm guideline (although the level has yet to be determined). Moreover, a big majority of Member States are hoping the new ceiling will mean capping farm spending. Meanwhile, Farm Ministers have reached a settlement on a draft Regulation involving general provisions for the Structural Funds. Nonetheless, these sector-specific advances have no significance in terms of political undertakings the overall bargaining process draws to a close.

The German Foreign Minister chairing the General Affairs Council, Joschka Fischer, whose country now holds the EU's rotating Presidency, said how pleased he was to have completed phase one of his negotiating programme. This involved approving the procedure for entrusting the management of the Agenda 2000 programme to the General Affairs Council in conjunction with specialist Council groups. Greece, Ireland and Portugal were alone in stressing the need for the Farm Council to retain main responsibility for the Common Agricultural Policy reform. The Foreign Ministers in the end agreed to set a spending limit, in cooperation with Finance Ministers, on the work of Agriculture Ministers. This formed the basis for the sector-specific talks, provided for in part two of the Presidency's programme, to get under way immediately so they may continue until the special EU Summit in Bonn, on February 26. Whereupon part three will be activated until the informal General Affairs Council, on March 13/14, which should focus on the final key political questions for each sector. Come part four, the Member States will have reached the last phase of the final compromise expected to be announced during the EU Summit in Berlin, on March 24/25. Within the context of this procedural framework, which has finally been defined after 18 months of heading nowhere fast, two sector-specific advances have been made. On the reform of regional policy, the framework Regulation on the Structural Funds is now universally accepted. The Community objectives are to be cut to three, the concentration principles will allow a correspondence between areas entitled to Community and national subsidies, and the...