5 October European Council

Date: 10/10/1996

EUROPEAN leaders reaffirmed their commitment to negotiate a new treaty for the Union by the middle of next year. The special one-day European summit in Dublin had been called to inject political momentum into the Intergovernmental Conference negotiations preparing the EU for enlargement. Participants were also at pains to rebut claims that the timetable was slipping and earlier ambitions faltering.

IRISH Prime Minister John Bruton, who hosted the talks, emerged confident that the short meeting had ensured the IGC remained on target. “We set out to look at the problems facing the Union as it approaches the next century and to make sure the IGC reflects those concerns. I believe we achieved that objective. We were able to give a very strong unanimous impulse to what is a very complex process,” he said.

EUROPEAN Commission Pres- ident Jacques Santer, who had earlier been one of those warning that the IGC was in danger of drifting, said he believed the summit had succeeded in dispelling possible misunderstanding and speculation. He insisted four essential messages should go out to the negotiators from the summit: the IGC should concentrate on essential issues and not become distracted by less central questions; it must retain a high level of ambition; it should respect the end-of-June-1997 deadline; and it should not be treated as a solely bureaucratic business.

NO presidency conclusions emerged from the summit, amid fears that formality and the need to reach some form of consensus would prevent the participants from speaking frankly. But the meeting confirmed the IGC's nine-month timetable and warned of the dangers to enlargement if it failed to meet the deadline. The outline of a full draft treaty will be examined by EU leaders at their next summit on 13 and 14 December. Under current plans, the negotiations should be completed at their Amsterdam meeting on 16 and 17 June next year.

GOVERNMENT leaders avoided any detailed negotiation on the contents of the revised treaty, but Bruton concluded that there was “very strong support” for specific references to the Union's role in stimulating job creation to be included in the new EU treaty. He also insisted the discussions had demonstrated that “we will be pursuing ambitious objectives in terms of the contents of the treaty”, adding: “We will not just make small changes.”

PARTICULAR emphasis was placed on the need for the Union to devise effective action against criminal activities with major social consequences, such as drug trafficking and organised crime. Acknowledging these priorities, the Irish prime minister noted: “I think there is going to be a change in emphasis and the change will be in that direction. I would hope that the contents of the treaty which emerges from Amsterdam will be stronger in this area than if we had not had this discussion today.”

MEASURES under discussion would strengthen existing areas of judicial and police cooperation considerably. The Irish premier identified the need to pursue criminal assets which could be moved from one jurisdiction to another, to tackle the growing use of the Internet or information technology to commit or encourage cyber-crime, to clamp down on chemical precursors used to manufacture drugs like ecstasy, and to prevent the criminal and sexual exploitation of children.

GERMAN Chancellor Helmut Kohl took advantage of the summit to clarify earlier reports that he believed the current IGC (dubbed Maastricht II) would soon have to be followed by another round of negotiations (Maastricht III) to settle the controversial issues still defying solution. His comments were seized on in certain quarters as evidence that he was prepared to trim the IGC agenda and scale down earlier ambitions. Kohl robustly dismissed such an interpretation as “absurd”. He insisted there had been many modifications over the years to the Union's founding Treaty of Rome and predicted that in “ten or 15 years from now, there will be people more intelligent than us who will consider further changes”.

EUROPEAN Parliament President Klaus Hänsch met EU leaders before their IGC discussion to spell out MEPs' expectations of the treaty reform negotiations. Arguing that enlargement made it vital for more decisions to be taken by majority vote rather than unanimity, he warned: “Unless institutional reforms are undertaken, the Union is bound to become a mere free trade area.” Hänsch also insisted that procedures should be simplified and made more transparent, and that the Union should do more to tackle unemployment and international crime.

THE EU is preparing to appoint a special envoy to the Middle East to ensure the Union's longer-term involvement in the region's affairs. The idea, raised at the summit, reflects the EU's frustration at being sidelined in the latest US-brokered peace moves between Israelis and Palestinians, despite the fact that the Union is by far the largest single donor of humanitarian and development aid to the area.