Pan-European forum plan rebuffed

Date: 10/09/1998

By Simon Taylor

REJECTION of Austrian plans for a new diplomatic forum binding the EU and countries with long-term hopes of Union membership has left Vienna with the awkward task of finding an effective alternative before its presidency comes to an end in December.

Following the almost unanimous scuppering of Austrian Foreign Minister Wolfgang Schüssel's proposal for a multilateral 'Partnership for Europe' forum at last weekend's informal meeting with his EU counterparts in Salzburg, his officials will now examine how existing international institutions can be more fully exploited to this end. Candidates include the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The Austrians have already floated the idea of inviting more countries to join the European Conference - a forum launched under the UK presidency as a formalised way of keeping hope of eventual Turkish accession to the EU alive in Ankara.

However, the European Conference is threatening to turn into a damp squib after Turkey boycotted its first meeting in May in protest at Ankara's exclusion from the countries invited to join the EU at the Luxembourg summit in December last year.

Foreign ministers believe that if it is to play a useful role in handling relations with countries not expected to join in the medium term, the role of the Conference would have to be expanded from simply dealing with enlargement of the Union.

Schüssel suggested that some countries whose accession to the EU remains decades away could be offered observer status at the Conference, at least in the early stages.

To head off some countries' fears that this 'partnership' could increase the Union's workload or start competing with other diplomatic frameworks, Schüssel has proposed limiting the policy areas which could be dealt with under the new arrangements.

This would have the advantage of putting some of the EU's existing agreements with single countries on a broader footing. For example, if member states were unhappy about turning the partnership into a forum to deal with Common Security and Foreign Policy issues, it could instead be used as a framework for discussing policy areas such as water and pollution which can only be effectively dealt with at a regional level.

Alternatively, according to the Austrian paper, the partnership could be used to work towards negotiations for a “pan-European free trade area”.

The challenge facing the Union is to improve the coordination of the growing number of bilateral agreements with neighbouring countries whose combined population is close to 1 billion.

With the exception of Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama, Schüssel received no support for his proposal to construct a new diplomatic framework. The consensus among ministers was that, far from simplifying current arrangements, the creation of a new body would add to the Union's burdens.

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel warned the EU against “overstretching” itself, claiming that it was already fully occupied with the cumbersome process of negotiating enlargement to 11 applicant countries.

Despite the cold water poured on Schüssel's blueprint at the Salzburg meeting, Council officials insisted that there was still a strong desire on the part of ministers to find a better way of coordinating the growing number of bilateral agreements and finding a more cost-effective framework for dealing with multi-lateral issues such as crime and corruption and environmental policy.

Ministers agree that better coordination is vital since the Union has signed some form of agreement with almost every state in the region, ranging from the 11 candidate countries for membership to Turkey, Switzerland, Norway and the countries of the former Soviet Union. Deals have also been penned with North African countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea.

As the presidency paper drawn up for the Salzburg meeting pointed out, the existing free-trade, association, cooperation and partnership agreements are virtually all bilateral in nature.

Multilateral arrangements only exist for accession candidates, countries in the European Economic Area, those North African Mediterranean states involved in the Barcelona process, and countries inside the European Conference framework.

With more pressing issues, such as the fall-out from the Kosovo fighting and meeting the ambitious targets for negotiating the Agenda 2000 spending reform package, on their minds, diplomats are pessimistic as to whether the new forum can be agreed by the close of Austria's presidency.