EU leaders lashed for IGC set-backs

Date: 12/09/1996

By Rory Watson

EU GOVERNMENTS stand accused of lacking urgency, ambition and a clear sense of direction as concern grows about the slow progress being made by negotiators charged with setting the Union's course for the 21st century.

This harsh assessment will add to the mounting pressure on EU leaders to inject new vitality into the Intergovernmental Conference negotiations at their special summit in three weeks' time.

But whether they can do so - or risk merely raising expectations by holding an extra summit, only to dash them and further undermine the credibility of the reform process - remains an open question.

The criticism comes from IGC Commissioner Marcelino Oreja, a member of the tightly-knit group tasked with designing the blueprint for a revitalised Union.

“There is no sense of urgency. I also feel that the level of ambition is low. At the outset, there was uncertainty as to how high it would be, now there is certainty that it is low,” he told European Voice this week.

Oreja believes the special EU summit now planned for 5 October in Dublin must set clear objectives for the negotiators by strengthening the Union's ambitions and ensuring that other policies of central importance to the EU are not sacrificed because of the priority many governments are attaching to bolstering the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP).

The Commissioner says there is “a certain imbalance in approach to the main issues”. While the CFSP is one subject “we always come back to at meetings”, he believes the IGC has dramatically failed to tackle the crux of the challenge.

“What is lacking is proper consideration of the means to turn this political will into concrete form. If we do not solve this problem, the rest is useless,” he insists.

Oreja's outspoken attack is a clear sign of increasing frustration and disappointment within the Commission as it reconsiders its strategy for the negotiations after governments last week rebuffed its hopes of extending the Union's authority over international trade. That refusal, said Oreja, was a “test case which showed a lack of political will to go forward”.

He added: “It is evident that up until now it has not been clear what the objectives of the conference are and that clarity is essential. We need to know where we are going. If heads of state and government, as in Florence, spend only two hours on the issue, but give it a political push and set out objectives, it will have been worth it. Their role is precisely to make clear those objectives.”

The Commissioner has offered his own formula for focusing negotiators' attention on key issues at the heart of the debate.

“We need to see the wood for the trees. Why are we having an IGC? There are two reasons. It is to strengthen political union and - and this is sometimes forgotten - it is to prepare for enlargement. Just like subsidiarity and proportionality, enlargement should be taken into account in every EU policy,” he argues.

Oreja believes that by concentrating on encouraging employment opportunities and improving the Union's internal security record, the EU can go a long way towards transforming its citizens from spectators into active players in the integration process.

The Commission argues this emphasis on revitalising the link between the Union and its citizens is one of three central pillars for a restructured Union. The others involve constructing an effective external relations policy and adapting the EU's institutions to the demands of enlargement.

French President Jacques Chirac shares Oreja's view that the one-day summit should be used to move the IGC up a gear.

But others have openly voiced scepticism about its usefulness, given the current lack of progress in the negotiations. The Irish EU presidency is particularly concerned that the October meeting should not deflect its plans to produce the outline of a revised Maastricht Treaty for the second Dublin summit two months later.

The chances of a clear sense of mission emerging from the 5 October meeting may, however, have been reduced by a piece of unfortunate timing.

The summit comes just three days before the British Conservative Party begins its annual conference, and Prime Minister John Major will be at pains to avoid handing the Tory Eurosceptics any fresh ammunition to attack government policy on Europe on the eve of what is certain to be the party's last conference before the next UK election.