Presidency’s strategy for IGC under fire

Date: 07/03/1996

By Rory Watson and Ivo Ilic Gabara

THE Italian government plans to unveil an ambitious 35-point programme to reform the EU when it launches the renegotiation of the Maastricht Treaty in Turin this month.

As the Union prepares to expand eastwards and strives to rekindle the support of its citizens, the Italian government is warning its partners that “insufficient reform would weaken and even jeopardise the very nature of European integration”.

The groundwork for the wide-ranging agenda was laid by senior Italian diplomat Silvio Fagiolo in a series of behind-the-scenes meetings in national capitals. Italian Foreign Minister Susanna Agnelli will canvas further support when she meets with her EU colleagues in Palermo this weekend.

Italy has identified nine separate central themes, ranging from citizenship to security, which must be tackled during the Intergovernmental Conference if the EU is to meet its “historic mission” of expanding membership to include up to a dozen new members.

But Italy's strategy of asking the IGC to tackle each of the 35 issues twice at a series of nine two-day meetings between 1 April and 7 June is already coming in for criticism. Instead of covering a broad area superficially, the negotiators should examine a few central issues in greater depth, say critics.

“It is madness. They are trying to cover too much ground and this approach will only repeat the mistakes of Westendorp's Reflection Group. People will just slap position papers down on the table instead of negotiating,” complained one EU diplomat.

As the three Benelux countries finalise their IGC preparations at a mini-summit today (7 March), the UK has put forward its own ideas for improving the Union's ability to operate a common foreign and security policy.

British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind this week dismissed Franco-German ideas for “constructive abstention” in foreign policy, arguing that it would not resolve real disagreements between EU members. He did, however, lend his weight to France's push for the appointment of a public figure to project Union foreign policy to the outside world.

With less than three weeks to the IGC launch, Italy is still no closer to resolving the dispute over the role of the European Parliament in the process.

Rome is floating two possible options for settling the argument. Under the first, acceptable to all EU members except the UK and France, the Parliament's two representatives would be present as observers at all the meetings, speaking when appropriate. A simple majority vote would be sufficient to ask them to leave the room when the negotiations entered highly-confidential areas.

Under the second, the Parliament would be “closely associated” with the IGC. Its representatives would not participate in the meetings, but would make their views on subjects under discussion known to government representatives and ministers beforehand. They would receive all the documentation, be briefed after each negotiating session and have working sessions with IGC representatives twice every six months.