An ill omen for the IGC

Date: 14/03/1996

THE negotiations may not have started, but the bickering has already begun.

A furious row has blown up over whether representatives of the European Parliament, who played an active role in the work of the Reflection Group which prepared the ground for the Intergovernmental Conference, should be invited to participate in the negotiations themselves.

Thirteen member states insist the answer must be yes, while two - the UK and France - are equally adamant that it is out of the question. Their stand has provoked a furious response from MEPs, who have warned national governments against repeating the mistakes made at Maastricht.

EU leaders have repeatedly stressed the need to involve the public in the current debate over the Union's future to avoid a Maastricht-style backlash against whatever is agreed at the IGC. Giving MEPs a seat at the negotiating table could only help in this process.

It is fatuous to suggest, as British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind has, that MEPs cannot be allowed in simply because it is an “intergovernmental” conference and therefore only governments can participate.

After all, the Commission will be involved in the talks - even though it does not have a vote - in acknowledgement of its key role in EU affairs and the part it will play in implementing any changes agreed at the IGC.

Why should MEPs be treated any differently? Indeed, they have, if anything, an even stronger claim to be involved in the talks than the Commission, as the only directly-elected representatives of Europe's citizens.

British opposition to the idea is not surprising. The Eurosceptics within the ranks of the governing Conservative Party regard anything which might enhance MEPs' influence or power as a threat to the sovereignty of national parliaments and Prime Minister John Major cannot afford to provoke their ire as he fights for survival with a wafer-thin parliamentary majority. But the fact that France has sided so firmly with the UK on this issue has taken many by surprise, especially in the light of the fanfare of publicity given to Franco-German work on a 'joint approach' to the key issues facing the IGC.

It can only be hoped that both governments will change their minds before the talks get under way in Turin on 29 March.

For if all 15 member states cannot even agree on who should be at the negotiating table, it bodes extremely badly for hopes of achieving significant progress on the many important issues facing the conference.