IGC negotiators home in on essentials

Date: 18/07/1996

By Rory Watson

THE Irish presidency will table a second series of draft changes to the Maastricht Treaty next week as those charged with the negotiations on Union reform come under increasing pressure to speed up their work.

“The Intergovernmental Conference will examine five separate subjects on Monday and Tuesday and there will be texts on all of them,” an EU official confirmed yesterday (17 July).

The tactic of focusing discussion on specific texts and articles was first deployed by the Irish EU presidency this week when the IGC group examined how to improve the Union's handling of justice and home affairs issues and the contents of a specific employment chapter in the revised treaty.

“The discussions went well. People did not just read out set texts, but interrupted and debated issues,” said one observer.

Although agreement on set texts is still some way off, the Irish IGC chairman Noel Dorr confirmed the negotiations had reached a new stage and that, in the months ahead, he and his colleagues would be involved in a “method of successive approximations” of national positions.

“In any negotiation, there are three phases. In the first, you get statements of position by national delegations. In the second, you engage in argument and negotiation and the gradual shape of an outcome begins to emerge. In the third, you get trade-offs and a final deal. We are in the second phase,” Dorr said.

The change in tempo began on Monday when EU foreign ministers, for the first time, divorced their IGC discussions from their routine monthly activity of surveying the Union's relations with the rest of the world.

But, for many, the need to pick up the pace is long overdue.

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel reminded EU governments this week that it was not just the Union's own future which was at stake in the IGC negotiations.

“We cannot afford the luxury of contemplation and self-absorption in the Europe of 15 states in the face of the great expectations of associated states in Central and Eastern Europe,” he said.

Kinkel's call for the Union to become more effective in the battle against international crime was taken up by the IGC group this week. The issue is considered one of the most sensitive in the negotiations.

“It is important for citizens. It is important because there is a general feeling the third pillar does not work well and it is important because it touches on sensitive areas such as sovereignty and national parliaments. It is important we get real progress, not just bureaucratic reform,” said Dorr.

In their presidency paper, the Irish specifically raised the prospect of many third pillar issues being decided by majority vote instead of unanimity.

They also suggested extending the current list of priority tasks to include measures to tackle drug trafficking, crime and racism, and to reduce the scope for conflict between national laws.

Dorr confirmed that there was “broad acceptance by pretty much everybody” of the need for the Union to do more on employment in the revised treaty, as it was an issue which would be important “for the ultimate ratification of the outcome of the negotiations”.

When IGC negotiators meet in Brussels on Monday (22 July) they will consider separate texts on plans to beef up the EU's common foreign and security policy, defence, transparency, the legal personality of the Union and its external economic relations.