Slim chance of glory for Dutch EU presidency

By Martin Banks

Date: 01/07/04

IRELAND'S presidency of the EU's Council of Ministers will be a hard act to follow. The Dutch have the misfortune to be taking over the presidency while all around are praising the performance of the team that went before.

The UK described Ireland's job as "superb", while the French President Jacques Chirac praised the Irish as "excellent" and "efficient" and offered "warm and deserved" thanks.

Part of what made the Irish appear so successful was that they were following the Italian presidency, which, in some crucial respects, was a mess. The debacle of last December's summit was only the most obvious of their failures.

But six months on, the Dutch know that they will be compared against the performance of Ireland, not Italy, and that Jan Peter Balkenende will be measured against Bertie Ahern, not Silvio Berlusconi.

There are other ways in which the Dutch are not in the most favourable of starting positions.

A spokesman at the UK permanent representation to the EU said: "Of course, the Irish were fortunate in holding the presidency at a time when both the European Parliament and the Commission, both nearing the end of their tenure, were desperate to push through their legislative programmes. The Dutch will not have this advantage."

In the space of six months, the Irish concluded no less than 80 legislative agreements with the Parliament, which amounts to one-fifth of all legislation adopted by the assembly over its five-year-term.

By contrast, the Dutch will secure fewer agreements on legislation. The legislative proposals that remain behind are the most intractable - for example, the Community patent - or are fairly recent initiatives which have yet to be reviewed in detail. The REACH proposal on regulating chemicals and the services directive fall into this category.

In the area of justice and home affairs, the Irish presidency was preoccupied with tidying up the agenda set at Tampere in 1999 involving a wide range of initiatives on asylum, immigration, civil law cooperation, police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. The Dutch could leave their mark in this field. Foreign and security policy may be another area of development.

The new presidency could see some steps taken towards the development of a European diplomatic service. Proposed by the EU constitution, the diplomatic service will be headed by a European foreign minister.

Although the minister will only be appointed when the constitution enters into force (2007, bar rejection in national referenda), member states' representatives indicated preparations for the European diplomatic service should start as soon as this Autumn.

After a period of upheaval, it will fall to the Dutch to begin bedding down relations between the Council of Ministers and the other EU institutions.

There is a new crop of MEPs and there will be a new composition of Parliamentary committees, with which the Netherlands must work out a modus vivendi on behalf of the Council. Similarly, the Dutch will have to build new relationships with the next European Commission, under its incoming president Portuguese José Manuel Durão Barroso.

Nor should it be forgotten that the Council itself is still learning how to operate as a 25-state body. Arguably the Irish benefited from a kind ofaccession honeymoon: the newly joined states were unlikely to start throwing their weight around in the first two months of their EU membership. The Dutch presidency might witness the new states beginning to feel less restrained testing their status.

Jens-Peter Bonde, the recently re-elected Danish Eurosceptic MEP, points out that the tensions between the small and large countries are still very much alive.

He gave the Irish eight-out-of-ten on 'technical merit' for their "efficient preparation and chairmanship" of Council meetings. But he offered a resounding zero for 'artistic merit' - what he sees as the political agenda.

"As a small nation, I was surprised Ireland did not stand up more for smaller states in the discussions over the constitution," Bonde said.

Easy triumphs might be hard to come by for the Dutch but they will not be short of difficult dossiers.

The Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot, an avowed champion of Turkey's admission to the EU, wants to see a date set during his presidency for the start of entry negotiations with Ankara.

For his compatriot Frits Bolkestein, the Commission's outgoing internal market chief, this is the "overriding" issue facing the Dutch presidency. Bolkestein has long harboured doubts about admitting Turkey to the Union.

Aside from Turkey, the Netherlands hopes to conclude negotiations with Romania and Bulgaria on the terms of accession. Whether or not those are problematic depends largely on the pace of change in Bucharest and Sofia.

Then there are the discussions about the EU's next medium-term financial planning period, 2007-13.

Potentially these talks could precipitate a series of confrontations: between the spending ambitions of the Commission and the cost-cutting instincts of the Council, between the countries that benefit the greatest from the EU budget and those that contribute the most.

The Dutch, being the biggest net contributor according to some measurements, are keen to see reform.

The question of what public finances can and should bear will also feature in the ongoing discussion of Stability and Growth Pact, its future enforcement and the options for reform.

The Dutch, who are staunch supporters of the pact, will seek ways to bring the finances of France, Germany and Italy to order. As in many other fields, the omens are not favourable.

Dutch Socialist Michiel van Hulten, who has just stepped down as an MEP, believes the Netherlands has been right to keep the launch of its six-month stint low-key and calls it a "caretaker presidency".

"It will be overshadowed by the debate in the UK about EU membership and referenda in member states on the constitution.

"It is also saddled with a lame-duck Commission. It will be a case of…keeping things in order for the next presidency."