ABSTRACTED from Reuters

An EU official said the bloc would soon wrap up environment talks with Latvia and Slovakia after closing negotiations on the issue with seven other candidates -- Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia.
"We are almost home with environment," the head of the European Commission's environment directorate, Jean-Francois Verstrynge, told a news conference.

The tiny Mediterranean island of Malta will be the only candidate for the 2004 EU entry that will still not have sealed a deal on deadlines for bringing its laws on environmental protection into line with those of the western bloc.

Bulgaria and Romania, the poorest EU candidates, have still a long way to go to close the talks, but their accession is not expected before 2007.

Environment protection was once considered one of the major obstacles for the Union's eastern enlargement, with estimates that about 120 billion euro ($105.4 billion) is needed for the candidates to fully meet Union pollution standards.

EU environment protection ministers will meet their counterparts from the applicant countries next week in Brussels.

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