DIFFERENT VOICES

Date: 09/01/1997

“The European agenda has so much on it that there is really no room left for specific desiderata of our own.”

Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo underlining his government's cautious and pragmatic approach to its six-month EU presidency.

“A general election will be held in the UK no later than May. The country must reach a clear decision on its European policy. The UK belongs to Europe. Europe needs the UK.”

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel in a new year statement which prompted accusations from the UK government that he was effectively calling on the British people to vote for the more pro-European opposition Labour Party in the forth-coming general election.

“In a European Union which aspires to become a political union, interference in [another member state's] internal affairs is, by definition, hardly possible. But even if it were possible, it is certainly not intended.”

A Bonn foreign ministry spokesman rejecting charges that Kinkel was guilty of meddling in British domestic politics.

“If fiscal policy became a Union matter, the EU would become a federation. It would be transformed into something completely different than the EU which the Swedish people, after some agony and a long and trying debate, approved [in the 1944 referendum].”

Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson warning that the balance between Europe's economic and political players might change once the euro is introduced, and calling for a discussion about what economic and monetary union will really mean.

“I welcome this initiative as a constructive move, a step in the right direction. I should point out, however, that today's

[3 January] announcement does not change the European Union's position in principle that we remain firmly opposed to all extraterritorial legislation, whatever its source, and will continue to defend our interests.”

European Commission President Jacques Santer welcoming the US' decision to suspend the introduction of a law allowing Americans to sue foreigners with investments in Cuba, but warning that the EU would only be entirely satisfied when the Helms-Burton Act was scrapped completely.

“After the decisions in Dublin, we have come quite a bit closer to a united Europe.”

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl heralding the agreement reached on a stability pact to ensure budgetary discipline in the euro zone reached at last month's summit.