EUROPEAN UNION MAPS ROAD FOR BALTIC ADMISSION.

European Parliament Chairman Klaus Haensch stressed April 10 and 11 in Vilnius and Riga that the European Union will admit the Baltic states as a group, not individually. Haensch outlined a sequence of steps involving a common beginning of the admission procedure for all three Baltic states, separate negotiations, and, ultimately, common admission. Haensch said it would be inconceivable for the EU to make internal organizational adjustments once every year if the Baltic countries were to be admitted individually and hence, staggered over time.

Hanesch also explicitly discouraged Estonia from pursuing a go-it-alone policy of seeking to join the EU ahead of Latvia and Lithuania. (BNS, April 10 & 11) The issue has bedeviled the Baltic countries and the EU, which has until now issued conflicting signals regarding individual versus group admission. A consensus appears now to be forming in the EU in favor of the latter variant. Yesterday in Tallinn, Swedish prime minister Goeran Persson also advised Estonia to stick with the other two Baltic countries. (BNS, April 11)

IMF Likely to Resume Standby Credits to Ukraine.