29 March European Council, Turin

Date: 04/04/1996

EU leaders gave the formal go-ahead for the Intergovernmental Conference to revise the Union's treaties and invited negotiators to complete their work “in about one year”. Summiteers issued their representatives with general instructions on meeting the expectations of the Union's citizens, advancing the process of European construction and preparing for future enlargement.

THE negotiating mandate for the IGC is set out in a five-page text agreed by the summit. It recommends that the conference “mainly focus its work” on a number of specific areas, but allows extra items to be placed on the table by stipulating that the list is “without prejudice to other questions which might be raised”. It sets down six central principles considered fundamental characteristics of the Union: democracy, efficiency, solidarity, cohesion, openness and transparency, and subsidiarity.

CITIZENS are to be at the core of the negotiations. Efforts will be made to determine how to improve existing fundamental rights such as equality and non-discrimination and to guarantee citizens' other rights in a Union without internal borders. The IGC will aim to strengthen controls at the EU's external frontiers and develop coherent and effective asylum, immigration and visa policies. Special attention is being paid to ensuring better protection for citizens against international crime, terrorism and drug trafficking.

ENVIRONMENTAL issues will be firmly on the IGC table as the Union continues its work to establish more effective and coherent programmes to achieve sustainable development. The Union's more distant citizens have also not been forgotten. The IGC mandate includes consideration of the EU's outermost regions and islands, and of overseas territories.

ENLARGEMENT will force the EU to consider how to improve the efficiency, coherence and legitimacy of its own institutions. The IGC is being asked to tackle three central themes: simplifying legislative procedures, widening the scope of co-decision in “truly legislative matters”, and examining the role and composition of the European Parliament, including the possibility of a uniform electoral system. That search will involve consideration of majority voting, the weighting of votes and the threshold for qualified majority decisions in the Council of Ministers. In reassessing the role of the Commission, European Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors, the IGC will consider how and to what extent national parliaments could be involved in EU business.

FLEXIBILITY is formally on the agenda for the first time. EU leaders agreed that the IGC must examine whether general or specific rules should be written into the new treaty to allow a certain number of states to develop closer cooperation in certain areas. Such an arrangement would be open to all and would have to respect the Union's institutional and legal framework, while avoiding any form of discrimination.

STRENGTHENING the Union's identity on the international stage is the third major strand of the IGC's work. The Turin negotiating mandate demands clearer identification of the principles and areas of a common foreign policy and changes to existing provisions “to allow decisions to be taken in a more effective and timely manner”. Similar instructions have been given to define an unambiguous relationship between the EU and the Western European Union, whose founding treaty will expire shortly after the end of the IGC.

MEPs' involvement in the forthcoming negotiations, agreed by EU foreign ministers earlier in the week, was endorsed by the heads of state and government. Under the arrangement, the Parliament will not have observer status at the IGC, but its president and two representatives will be kept fully briefed before and after the series of negotiating sessions. Euro MPs will have access to official documentation and information will also be provided to national parliaments.

UNEMPLOYMENT is seen by EU leaders as the priority task facing the Union and ways to tackle it will loom large in the IGC discussions. These will focus on methods to strengthen national policies through greater cooperation and coordination in the search for a high level of employment while ensuring social protection. A separate declaration at Turin on a “European Confidence Pact for Employment, Growth and Competitiveness” goes further. It calls on finance and social affairs ministers to examine how to maximise job creation and looks forward to the tripartite conference on growth and jobs, involving governments, social partners and the Commission, in Rome in mid-June.