Threat brings Greeks $3B

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 6

Threat brings Greeks $3B

NZPA-Reuter Brussels The European Economic Community has overcome a dispute with Greece after hours of tough negotiation and cleared the last big hurdle to the entry of Spain and Portugal next January.

The row with Athens at a two-day community summit threatened until the last minute on Saturday to undermine a historic agreement on Iberian entry reached only two days before.

After continuing their negotiations hours beyond the expected end of the summit, the community leaders, skilfully led by the group’s Italian presidency, managed to find a solution. They agreed to pay Athens SUSI.S billion ($3.29 billion) over seven years for its poor rural areas in exchange for the lifting of a Greek threat to veto for the community’s enlargement.

.The success of the talks with Greece and on Iberian entry was hailed by the community leaders as a triumph for European development, opening the way for long-delayed discussions on the future of the group, now due to expand from 10 to 12 members on January 1.

The grants to Greece will be made under the “integrated Mediterranean programmes,” designed to help less developed areas in southern Europe cope with the effects of enlargement. Poor regions of Italy and France will also benefit.

The enlargement deal was reached only hours before the start of the summit and was followed by wild jubilation among officials. The atmosphere was quickly soured when Greece, the last State to join, threatened to torpedo

the agreement because of long-standing grievances over its own tough entry terms four years ago. The grievances have long been recognised as valid by other member States.

The final agreement also provides an extra SUS3.S oillion ($7.67 billion) of aid to deprived areas in Italy and France, mostly in soft loans.

The British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, was quick to emphasise that the aid programme was not a long-term commitment. It was only meant to help those regions likely to face stiff competition from Spanish and Portuguese products similar to their own, she said.

The news that Spain has come to terms on joining the European Community was greeted joyously at almost all levels of Spanish society.

The agreement was seen as a historic watershed integrating Spain into Western Europe and consolidating Spanish democracy. Despite what are sure to be some economically painful transition costs, business, labour and political leaders of all stripes joined together, often in toasts with Spanish wine, to celebrate what they called the end of nearly 400 years of isolation behind the Pyrenees. The Prime Minister, Mr Felipe Gonzalez, in briefing leaders of all the Parliamentary groups on Friday, pointedly noted that it was fine Spanish wine they were drinking. After 23 years of efforts and eight years of arduous negotiations in this latest attempt to join the European Economic Community, wine production was one of the last hurdles overcome. In Lisbon the reaction to

Portugal’s entry was said to be triumphal, too, though more subdued.

The Portuguese Prime Minister, Dr Mario Soares, like Mr Gonzalez a Socialist, had staked his political career on entry. While industrialists and farmers generally hailed the agreement, many were concerned that the transition might hurt Portugal, Europe’s poorest country. “Within five years, Portugal will be a completely different country — and certainly a much better one for all Portuguese,” said Dr Soares.

Entry into the E.E.C. means that Spain and Portugal will share in its lucrative shared market and join its more fundamental movement toward greater West European political unity. Both nations will send members to the European Parliament.