Fagiolo maps out way forward for IGC

Date: 13/06/1996

ITALY'S government is looking to next week's Florence summit to inject clear political direction into the three-month-old talks on the reform of the EU.

In an attempt to provide that impetus, Silvio Fagiolo, the senior Italian diplomat who has been chairing the Intergovernmental Conference, will present his own assessment of the progress made in the talks and suggest that Union leaders concentrate on four central IGC themes.

The pivotal issues he has selected focus on moves towards a greater EU legal commitment in relation to tackling unemployment; more effective measures to handle visa, asylum and immigration policies; a strengthened common foreign and security policy (CFSP); and the possibility of some member states integrating certain policies closer and faster than others.

Although Fagiolo believes that next week's meeting of foreign ministers in Rome, coming just four days before the summit begins, will provide ministers with an opportunity to air their thoughts on how the negotiations might proceed under the incoming Irish presidency, he is anxious not to give them any opportunity to dilute his report.

To head off any attempts to change it, he is likely to present the report to his colleagues only towards the end of Monday's (17 June) meeting.

“It will be a report by the Italian presidency. There will be no negotiation on its contents at the foreign ministers' conclave,” said a senior Italian diplomat.

“The progress report will merely state under our own responsibility how work is proceeding. It does not require consensus on the part of other members. It will not claim to be exhaustive, but the presidency will attempt to paint an objective picture of the first phase of the talks,” Fagiolo has explained.

The IGC chairman is convinced that some form of majority voting is needed to improve the operation of the Union's security policy. “We have to find some way out of paralysing vetoes and that search has led to certain interesting proposals,” he maintains.

Bonn shares that view and, in a recent memo to the IGC group, proposed that majority decisions - rather than unanimity - should be the standard way in which CFSP policy is formulated.

Unanimity would still be permissible where vital national interests of a member state were at stake under the German scheme, but would be subject to certain conditions.

One possibility is that it could only be invoked by EU leaders at their twice-yearly summits. Another is that any request by a government for a unanimous decision would lead to a majority vote to determine whether such vital interests existed or not.

France is also trying to cajole its partners into giving greater priority to security and defence policies. It repeated its calls this week for the creation of a 'Mr or Mrs CFSP' post and urged the Union to take early advantage of last week's NATO decision to allow EU members to use alliance equipment for agreed missions.

“It is a chance which Europeans must seize if they want to move European security and defence from a virtual state to a real one. We propose they commit themselves now to defining a common European defence policy,” said French Foreign Minister Hervé de Charette.

European Parliament President Klaus Hänsch shares the view of most EU governments that, in the long run, the CFSP must include security and defence matters. But he sought to broaden the debate this week.

Hänsch took issue with Rome's failure to consider any parliamentary involvement, either at the national or European level, in the conduct of foreign and security policy. He also objected to the idea that the Union should be able to negotiate a new category of international agreements with third countries.

Under the scheme, MEPs would only be consulted on such agreements, in sharp contrast to existing practice under which their approval is required before the accord can enter into force.

Hänsch is also fighting attempts to dilute MEPs' powers over international treaties by opposing a further suggestion that, in future, it should be possible to apply them on a provisional basis until the Parliament gives its assent.