Danish spokesman promises support for candidate countries from July

On July 1 Denmark is to take over leadership of the European Union and Denmark's EU Affairs Minister Bertel Haarder has no doubt as to what the priorities will be during the six months of Danish EU leadership. "EU expansion remains our priority. For Copenhagen it is even a matter national honor - so many times have we stressed that the negotiations must end in 2002," said Haarder. Formally, the negotiation process with the 10 app licants is evaluated positively. The candidates have closed most of the negotiations' chapters and, theoretically at least, the six months remaining before the EU summit in Copenhagen should be sufficient time to close those that remain. "We hope that all chapters except those on agriculture and finances will be closed in July, or September at the latest," Haarder told the daily Gazeta Wyborcza. Poland will probably be able to close the Justice and Interior Affairs chapter at an EU session on July 31. The UK, Neth erlands, Germany and Sweden refused to accept direct payment of subsidies to farmers of new member states, demanding a thorough reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. In view of this problem, representatives of the Danish government assured that Denmark would do its utmost to promote the idea of granting at least a proportion of direct agricultural subsidies to Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and other EU applicants. (Gazeta Wyborcza, June 15-16, p. 24) A.Z.