EU: Leaders of candidate countries for EU membership have reacted angrily to remarks by the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, criticising their support for United States policy on Iraq.
Speaking after Monday night's emergency meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, Mr Chirac said that the central and eastern European leaders could have put their chances of joining the EU at risk when when they signed letters supporting the US.
"It is not really responsible behaviour. It is not well brought up behaviour. They missed a good opportunity to shut up," he said.
Mr Chirac said the candidates should have consulted the EU before singing the letters and he suggested that they could be endangering their entry into the EU. He told Romania and Bulgaria, which are expected to join the EU in 2007, that their position is already very delicate and if they wanted to diminish their chances of joining the EU they could not have chosen a better way.
In Brussels yesterday for a briefing from the Greek Presidency on the outcome of Monday's summit, politicians from the candidate countries queued up to express their outrage.
The Czech Foreign Minister, Mr Cyril Svoboda, said he had no intention of taking Mr Chirac's advice by shutting up.
"We are not joining the EU so we can sit and shut up," he said.
Poland's Foreign Minister, Mr Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, took exception to Mr Chirac's condescension in characterising the candidates as children.
"In the European family, there are no mummies, no daddies and no kids. It is a family of equals. In particular, there are no kids who are not mature enough to be partners with other members of the family," he said.
Romania's Prime Minister, Mr Adrian Nastase, attempted to laugh off the row. "Every time I have a dispute with my wife, I shout at my sons. So the problem of Mr Chirac apparently is with the Americans and not with Romania and Bulgaria," he said.
Slovenia's Prime Minister, Mr Anton Rop, yesterday said he regretted Mr Chirac's statement.
"It is a very unusual statement, I'm sorry that it happened. It does not fit within the democratic spirit that rules among the EU member states," he said.
Latvian Foreign Minister, Ms Sandra Kalniete, yesterday said the joint EU statement was broadly in line with what the group wanted. "I don't find anything that would be substantially different from the position taken by the Vilnius. Ten countries."
In Warsaw yesterday, the French Defence Minister, Ms Michele Alliot-Marie, echoed Mr Chirac's words, telling her hosts that "it was better to keep silent when you don't know what's going on."
She said that it was only when the candidates were full members that they had the right to take a position on European affairs, suggesting that public opinion in current member-states might rise up against enlargement and the candidates might be punished for their insolence when EU parliaments come to ratify their membership treaties.