EU leaders to reject demands for wider treaty reform agenda

Date: 09/12/1999

By Gareth Harding

EU LEADERS will reject calls from the European Commission and MEPs to widen the agenda for next year's talks on Union treaty reform at their summit in Helsinki this weekend.

Following a whistle-stop tour of EU capitals over the last two weeks, Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen has concluded that there is no chance of member states agreeing to discuss more far-reaching reforms.

Instead, a paper drawn up by his officials for the summit recommends that the Intergovernmental Conference, which kicks off early next year, should restrict itself to the issues left over from the Amsterdam Treaty talks. These include reweighting votes in the Council of Ministers, limiting the number of European Commissioners and extending qualified majority voting.

Governments have indicated that they might be willing to tackle a small number of other, relatively minor reforms, but the idea of an ambitious conference - as favoured by MEPs and Commission President Romano Prodi - has been shot down in flames.

The Finnish paper states that proposals from the two institutions to allow groups of member states to go it alone on contentious issues and to divide the EU treaty into two parts to allow some parts to be changed more easily have met with little support from governments. Likewise, there is little enthusiasm for tackling defence and security issues during the talks or for integrating a charter on fundamental rights into the treaty at the end of next year.

Agreeing a limited agenda for the talks will certainly make it easier to stick to the December 2000 deadline for drawing up a new treaty. But Portugal, which takes over the presidency of the EU next month, nevertheless faces an uphill task.

Portuguese Minister for Europe Seixas da Costa told European Voice that the "situation this time round is more difficult than at Amsterdam because a limited agenda leaves little scope for trade-offs".

Finnish officials believe that clinching a deal on the Amsterdam left-overs is an ambitious goal in itself. There appears to be broad agreement that larger member states should give up their right to send more than one Commissioner to Brussels in return for increasing their number of votes in the Council. But getting an accord on how far QMV should be extended will be far trickier.

The report notes that EU governments agree that majority voting "is the key to efficient decision-making". However, Finnish proposals to extend it to visa and asylum policy, appointments to top jobs in the institutions and all budget, single market and trade issues will be fiercely contested by some member states.

EU finance ministers were meeting today (9 December) to search for a compromise on plans for an EU-wide savings tax in the face of dogged opposition from the UK. Finnish officials believe the difficulties governments have had agreeing the measure strengthens the case for QMV to be applied to taxation policy, although other member states would be fiercely opposed to this.

In addition to taking momentous decisions on enlarging the EU and extending its defence capabilities at the summit, Union leaders are due to adopt a 'Millennium Declaration' at their two-day meeting. The statement is meant to "give people an idea what we need the Union for", according to presidency sources, who admit that citizens currently have a "lukewarm attitude" towards European integration.

The declaration drawn up by Helsinki also aims to highlight the EU's main goals in the early 21st century. It will argue that the Union is a force for stability in an unstable world and exists to combat crime, safeguard the environment and guarantee free markets.

EU leaders will reject calls from the European Commission and MEPs to widen the agenda for next year's talks on Union treaty reform at their summit in Helsinki, December 1999.