Testing times as IGC negotiators debate trade

Date: 24/10/1996

By Mark Turner

THE EU's trade policy will be placed under the microscope when Union foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg next week.

The Irish presidency intends to use the meeting to establish to what extent its partners are prepared to construct a common external economic face for the Union, before it presents EU governments with a draft outline of a revised Maastricht Treaty in early December.

But the quest for a common front is floundering over the question of how foreign trade deals should be decided.

The European Commission believes its responsibility for negotiating commercial agreements covering goods should be extended into the new, and increasingly important, areas of services and intellectual property.

The Union decides negotiating terms in the first category on a majority vote, but unanimity is required for the other two areas which several governments insist should remain firmly in member states' hands.

Many believe the existing two-tier approach is damaging to the Union's external image. But diplomatic sources warn that, with little movement on either side, the ironic result of a more unified trade policy could be less flexibility and the need for more unanimity than before.

With equally difficult debates looming on the future of the Union's foreign, defence and security policies, ministers will face a testing time on Monday (28 October) if they are to pave the way for treaty changes.

But a new Franco-German paper offers a glimmer of hope for resolving some seemingly unbreakable IGC deadlocks.

The German and French Foreign Ministers Klaus Kinkel and Hervé de Charette this week presented their long-awaited version of the 'flexibility clause' to IGC negotiators. This would effectively allow for a two-speed Europe without affecting full Union cooperation on core issues.

In order to avoid deep splits emerging between European front-runners and dawdlers, such cooperation would require a minimum number of participating states - a threshold which could vary according to specific policy areas.

Germany's IGC representative Werner Hoyer insisted the proposals must be implemented if the Union was to evolve following expansion to the east and south.

But some, notably in the UK camp, fear that the plan could be used as a roundabout way of bypassing national vetoes on key decisions.

French European Affairs Minister Michel Barnier denied this, adding: “We have no ulterior motives for tabling this. We are thinking of the next century.”

He pointed out that a similar model of cooperation already existed in a number of areas: social policy, monetary union and, via the Schengen Convention, the free movement of people.

Despite increasing support for a larger measure of flexibility in the Union, the formula does not solve the problem of placing the EU's external economic relations on a sound footing. “We are trying to introduce a single voice, not even greater divergence,” said an Irish official.