3 July Luxembourg presidency and European Commission meeting

Date: 10/07/1997

LUXEMBOURG's six months at the helm of the EU will be dominated by a trio of major challenges: enlargement, economic and monetary union and employment. “We have a very clear mandate on enlargement from the Madrid summit, on jobs from the Amsterdam summit and on monetary union from the Maastricht summit,” explained the Grand Duchy's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker. Confirmation of his country's priorities between now and the end of the year came at the official start-of-presidency meeting between the Luxembourg government and the European Commission. “The Luxembourg presidency has plenty on its plate. It is well prepared and keen to cooperate with us,” said Commission President Jacques Santer afterwards.

LOOKING ahead to the run-up to monetary union, Juncker admitted that it would be a

“very difficult period”, adding: “The financial markets will know informally who will be in and who will be out and we need to be prepared to take decisions if that proves necessary.” But he refused to speculate on the measures which might be implemented to smooth the path towards the euro. “It really makes no sense to give an indication in July of what might be possible in late November. You have to be prepared for all possible eventualities,” he insisted. The Luxembourg premier, describing the introduction of the euro as the EU's “last big ambition this century”, predicted that a “significant number” of countries would take part on the scheduled starting date, now less than 18 months away. “The Commission and the presidency are convinced a single currency will be created on 1 January 1999. We want to ensure the convergence criteria are respected by the largest number,” he said.

WITH the Commission preparing to publish its opinion on up to a dozen bids for EU membership next Wednesday (16 July), Santer confirmed that because of the countries' varying sizes and economies, it would have to differentiate between the applicants. But he insisted that a proposal would be put forward to allow those who were not in the first wave of enlargement to be anchored to the Union and to take part in certain programmes. The message was underlined by Juncker when he confirmed that his government had no intention of sending out a signal to those countries not selected for the first round of enlargement that Europe was “turning its back on them”.

LUXEMBOURG Foreign Minister Jacques Poos, confirming that the planned EU jobs summit would take place in November rather than October as originally suggested, said: “We do not feel we can do a new strategy paper. What we want to do is take between six and 12 concrete measures which are already being applied in member states and see what lessons could be drawn.” The Luxembourg presidency is also expecting a policy paper from the European Investment Bank on how its substantial resources might be used more imaginatively to create jobs.

POOS confirmed that he wanted to see a substantial debate within the Union on its human rights policy following disagreements in recent weeks between member states on how this should be implemented in dealings with third countries.