6-7 April General Affairs Council Informal

Date: 10/04/1997

CLEAR differences emerged between the EU's larger and smaller member states over the size of the European Commission in an enlarged Union, as foreign ministers tackled the sensitive issue of institutional reform at their informal Intergovernmental Conference meeting in Noordwijk.

FRENCH Foreign Minister Hervé de Charette insisted that in the interests of efficiency there should be no more than a dozen Commissioners. To ensure that every member state had a representative in the institution at least once every five years, France proposed that Commission membership should rotate among EU countries, large and small alike. The general rotation concept was accepted by Germany, but was fatally undermined when De Charette's counterpart Klaus Kinkel stressed that Germany, given its size, should always have a Commissioner.

AT THE other end of the spectrum, Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg in particular argued forcefully that every member state should be entitled to a Commissioner. They were supported by Sweden and Finland, while Austria claimed that an early decision was not necessary since the pressures on the Commission from future enlargements of the Union were unlikely to be felt for many years to come.

UNION governments also divided into two distinct camps when foreign ministers examined ways of reweighting member states' votes in the Council of Ministers. France and the UK argued that there should be a closer correlation between the number of votes a country had and its population, to ensure EU policy could not be determined by a group of small countries with little more than half the Union's inhabitants. In the original six-member Union, an alliance representing 70&percent; of EU citizens was needed for agreement on a proposed measure. Now, with successive enlargements, the figure has fallen to 59&percent;. France and the UK want to raise the bar to nearer 65&percent;.

THERE was, however, little support for the idea from Germany, Italy and Spain, and it was treated with suspicion by smaller member states. Dutch Foreign Minister and chairman Hans van Mierlo warned that if too much emphasis was placed on reweighting the voting strength of certain countries, it could make the remainder more reluctant to agree to extend majority voting in decision-making areas now determined by unanimity.

THE informal IGC talks were largely overshadowed by arguments over China's human rights record. Van Mierlo had originally intended to win the full backing of his colleagues for an EU resolution condemning China to be tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. But hopes of a united front were dashed when France, supported by Germany and Italy, broke ranks and insisted that dialogue with China was better than confrontation. The Dutch foreign minister warned that the internal rift threatened to damage the EU's credibility on the world stage.