The president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, said today that he expected six countries to be ready to join the European Union in 2003. Speaking at a conference on Eastern Europe in Bologna, Prodi said that the EU should push ahead with lagging internal reforms to allow for enlargement. Prodi did not say which countries he had in mind but said that each applicant country would be judged on its merits. Front-running candidates are Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus, all of which started membership negotiations in 1998. Six more countries started talks this year.
