Bonn lowers its sights on CFSP

Date: 16/05/1996

By Elizabeth Wise

and Thomas Klau

IT is increasingly doubtful that the Intergovernmental Conference now under way will be able to provide the EU with the defence and security dimension which Germany insists is vital to its growth.

Speaking after talks on the Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy which marked the end of the first round of talks on the overhaul of the EU treaty, German IGC representative Werner Hoyer acknowledged that the best Union governments could do now would be to draft a step-by-step plan setting out the strategy for creating a European defence identity.

Werner insisted that if the EU wanted “to continue to grow as a Union”, it needed a defence and security dimension, but added: “It is too early to discuss at the IGC a defence commitment that would be valid for all EU members.”

Hoyer also said IGC negotiators would focus in future sessions on how to maintain Europe's capacity to produce its own armaments, ensuring independence from non-EU arms manufacturers, notably in the US.

Union governments agree broadly on the need to improve their joint capacity to analyse foreign policy needs. But this is no more of a hindrance to the CFSP than is the current rule requiring foreign policy decisions to be taken unanimously. While a consensus has already emerged that defence decisions would have to be taken unanimously, many member states support the introduction of some form of qualified majority voting on foreign policy issues.

European Parliament President Klaus Hänsch, continuing his drive for an end to the right of member states to veto joint foreign policy initiatives, said this week: “Ending the veto in CFSP would be in keeping with the notion of flexibility.”

'Flexibility', the new buzzword at IGC tables, is being hailed as a way to help the Union meet the challenge of opening its doors to as many as a dozen new members at the beginning of the next decade.

For some of the trickier questions facing EU members, flexibility may also be a way to enshrine compromises and ensure the negotiators do not emerge empty-handed at the end of the process.

But IGC chairman Silvio Fagiolo yesterday (14 May) expressed doubts that it could work in practice without harming the Union.

“This is complex to define and difficult to put into practice. We have to be very careful to avoid a dilution of the Union,” he said.

Hänsch pointed out that the concept was not a new one, saying previous accession treaties had allowed transition periods for individual countries and similar allowances for new entrants could be arranged without amending the Maastricht Treaty.

But Hänsch made it clear that what governments were considering now - allowing a group of existing member states to move forward with closer integration in 'first pillar' areas where the EU has a right to legislate - was not acceptable to the Parliament.

He said joint actions by a few member states would, however, be acceptable in foreign policy initiatives, adding: “It's quite conceivable that a group of member states could participate in an action which would not involve others.” For that, he said, treaty writers could specify that the Union's new flexibility applied only to CFSP, and not to other sections of the treaty.

Hänsch also repeated the Parliament's demand for EU governments to end their monopoly on questions of asylum, immigration and police cooperation and for MEPs to be involved in these areas in future.