13-14 September: General Affairs Council

Date: 16/09/1999

EU FOREIGN ministers agreed to impose a four-month arms sales embargo on Indonesia in a bid to force Jakarta to end the violence in East Timor. Ministers decided to halt sales of arms, munitions and military equipment to Indonesia and cancel all military cooperation projects. The UK and France were initially unwilling to impose an immediate arms embargo, arguing that the timing was inappropriate as President Habibie had just agreed to allow foreign troops into the province to monitor the situation. Finnish Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen, who chaired the meeting, said most Union member states had already banned arms sales to Indonesia through national legislation, but wanted to send a united political message from the EU to Habibie. Ministers urged the Indonesian government to allow international humanitarian organisations into East Timor as soon as possible.

MINISTERS held their first full meeting in two years with their Turkish counterpart Ismail Cem. Both parties described the encounter as “positive”, but there was no agreement on Turkey's bid to be treated as a full candidate for Union membership. Halonen said talks had focused on financial assistance to Turkey in the wake of the devastating earthquake last month.

IN A bid to find a solution to the long-running banana dispute with the US, outgoing Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan presented a report on possible options for reform which would convince Washington to drop h181 million of sanctions imposed on EU exports. Brittan said that a tariff-only solution without special quotas for certain types of producer was the best way to ensure that the regime would be accepted by the US and Ecuador. But France, Spain and Portugal, which all have banana growers in overseas territories, argued that quotas must be kept to protect higher cost producers in the Caribbean and parts of Africa. However, UK Foreign Minister Robin Cook, traditionally a supporter of quotas, seemed to be warming to a tariff-only solution. Ministers called on the new Commission to make proposals for reform of the banana regime before the ministerial meeting in Seattle in November.

CONTACT with opposition forces in Yugoslavia should be increased in a bid to boost democracy in the country, ministers agreed. They decided that the EU would invite opponents of President Slobodan Milosevic's regime to Brussels and asked experts to examine ways of supplying energy to areas where anti-Milosevic forces are in charge.

MINISTERS agreed to end civilian sanctions against Libya in recognition of Tripoli's moves to cut its links with terrorist groups. A range of sanctions, chiefly restrictions on visas for diplomats and government officials, were suspended temporarily in April after Tripoli handed over two men suspected of involvement in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.