The European Commission has recommended starting negotiations on eight areas of EU legislation with Malta, Slovakia, Latvia and Lithuania

Date: 09/03/2000

But it said Romania and Bulgaria should only be allowed to begin talks on five and six subjects respectively as they were less prepared for accession. The Commission advised that negotiations should start with all six applicants invited to begin entry talks last December in the fields of small business, science and research, education, external relations and foreign policy. It said Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia should also be able to launch talks on competition, statistics, and culture and audio-visual policy, while Malta was ready to discuss telecoms, industrial and audio-visual policy.