Summit to herald progress made by Lisbon on key issues facing EU

Date: 08/06/2000

This month's meeting of Union leaders in Feira will assess the advances made by Lisbon during its stint in charge of EU business on crucial topics such as the Intergovernmental Conference and the creation of a military force to enable the Union to tackle crises on its own doorstep alone. Simon Taylor reports

THE Portuguese presidency has been similar to one of the duller stages of the Tour de France. "There is no great summit at the end of it, but if you stop pedalling you do not get to the next stage," said one EU diplomat.

Following foreign policy successes of last December's summit in Helsinki and ahead of the new Union treaty due to be finalised in Nice at the end of this year, the Feira summit will not win any prizes.

In any case, the Portuguese have already secured the yellow jersey for the success of their 'dot.com' summit in Lisbon in March, which succeeded in harnessing EU governments' enthusiasm for emerging technologies as a means of creating wealth combined with a populist job development agenda to bring down unemployment.

But at the end of its six-month term in charge of Union business, Portugal has been the perfect pace-maker for the next difficult stage, when important decisions on internal reforms, defence and enlargement will have to be taken.

As for the two main issues the Portuguese have had to handle - the discussions on new decision-making rules to prepare for a Union of up to 28 member states and the creation of a new independent military profile for the EU - Lisbon has secured some significant breakthroughs. But the incoming French presidency will still face a tough battle to get agreement on how member states will run their day-to-day business in future.

No one ever expected that Union governments would make major headway in the Intergovernmental Conference in time for this month's Feira summit. The challenge of finding answers to the most difficult questions - such as the number of European Commissioners in an enlarged EU, the votes each member state wields in the Council of Ministers and the range of policy areas where member states might give up their national vetoes - is simply too great.

But Union diplomats say the Portuguese, in the shape of their very capable Secretary of State for European Affairs Seixas da Costa, have done a good job in narrowing some of the very broad debates and identifying potential ways forward for the French.

One of the best examples is the discussion on possible areas where decisions might be taken by qualified majority vote (QMV) in future. All countries, even those whose electorates are most sensitive about the government ceding power to Brussels-based institutions, realise that the potential for legislative gridlock in a Union of up to 28 member states after enlargement is enormous unless the right of veto is curtailed. As Da Costa himself warned last week: "If we are not capable of working out a substantial programme on QMV, we will not be able to rise to the challenge we have set ourselves."

The Portuguese have therefore performed a very useful task in boiling down the areas where a shift to QMV may be contemplated - including certain aspects of issues such as taxation, environment, social policy, and justice and home affairs. But the secretary of state admitted last week that the deadline for a deal was still too far off for member states to start nailing their colours to the mast. "People are not ready to strike compromises because we are only half-way through the process," he said.

On other problematic issues facing the IGC, such as the size of the Commission and the reweighting of votes, even the indefatigable Da Costa is less optimistic about the chances for progress in the early months of the French presidency.

Following a meeting between senior EU government officials on the two topics, he said member states had not moved at all, with the smaller countries still adamant that they must have a Commissioner each in an enlarged Union. "Positions are still very far apart and they will not be any closer at the end of the French presidency. I have difficulty in seeing what can be decided earlier than right at the end of the presidency," said Da Costa dolefully.

Despite the lack of success of producing even the outlines of an IGC deal at Feira, the Portuguese do have one concrete achievement for which they can claim credit: they have put and kept on the agenda the option of 'enhanced cooperation'.

This formidable piece of EU jargon, a new version of the old 'variable geometry', describes a mechanism which would allow some countries to go ahead with new forms of cooperation without all of the Union's member states being involved. It would allow European integration to advance at the pace of the most enthusiastic countries in areas such as security and defence and justice and home affairs without being blocked by the rest.

The other main achievement to be marked at Feira is the progress which Portugal has made in giving the EU the ability to use its military forces for crisis management.

Union leaders will approve a package of measures at the summit setting out how they will consult their NATO partners who, for the time being at least, still own and control the essential military hardware which has enabled EU governments to deploy their troops in trouble spots such as Bosnia and Kosovo.

Until the Union has a satellite intelligence-gathering capability to match that of the US, and transport capabilities to get its soldiers into place, a close relationship with NATO's quartermasters will be essential.

The Feira summit will set out a number of arrangements designed to satisfy NATO members such as the US which are keen to see the Union taking on more responsibility for international peace-keeping tasks. But the bigger challenge now is to allay the concerns of NATO member countries in Europe like Turkey and Norway which are not EU member states but which are anxious to ensure that the Union does not hijack the alliance's assets and leave them on the sidelines when operational decisions are being taken.

Until April, it seemed doubtful that the EU could find a formula which its alliance partners would find acceptable because of French fears that excessive NATO influence at too early a stage would strangle the Union's new military baby at birth.

Fortunately for the Portuguese, the UK - the other main driving force behind the new military initiative - got together with France and thrashed out a solution acceptable to both sides, which will allow the EU to draw on NATO expertise and begin discussing the most important aspects of future relations between the two bodies such as the confidentiality of sensitive documents and access to the alliance's military equipment.

This breakthrough leaves France with the bigger challenge of turning the Union's ambitions of creating a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force into reality by the end of this year.

Although EU enlargement has become more problematic amid signs that enthusiasm for the project is waning in some existing member states, the Portuguese nevertheless managed to keep the protests of the applicant countries at bay by sticking to their promised timetable and opening negotiations on the last remaining areas of policy with the first-wave candidates and making a good start on talks with the second-wavers.

And while Lisbon may have failed in its efforts to deliver deals in some policy areas in time for this month's summit, any blame for the biggest disappointment - the lack of a deal on the planned EU-wide savings tax - can hardly be laid at its door.

Following a flurry of meetings called to try to break the deadlock, Union governments have begun showing signs of being prepared to move from their entrenched positions. A compromise is shaping up which would allow those in favour of the tax to introduce one, while those opposed to it - including the UK, which is zealously defending the interests of London's financial sector - would simply agree to send information about the interest paid to non-resident savers back to their home authorities.

Even Luxembourg, with its precious tradition of banking secrecy, has now indicated that it might be prepared to agree to this, but the maturing deal is simply not yet ripe for plucking.

And while the Portuguese will leave it to the French to make the sprint to the line on defence and the new EU treaty, they have kept up the pace admirably.

Previews of the European Council, Feira, 19-20.6.00 and review of the Portuguese EU Presidency.

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