6 December General Affairs Council

Date: 12/12/1996

IRISH Foreign Minister Dick Spring stressed that the aim of making the Union more relevant and comprehensible to its citizens was a constant theme throughout all the chapters of the draft revised Maastricht Treaty, to be examined by EU leaders at their summit in Dublin this weekend. Summing up the brief debate on the 140-page text, Spring noted that there was widespread agreement that the text represented a valid basis for further work by the Intergovernmental Conference over the next six months. The draft text was given a generally warm reception, although France's Hervé de Charette delivered an outspoken attack on it for lacking ambition.

AFTER meeting foreign ministers, German MEP Elmar Brok, one of the European Parliament's two representatives at the IGC, described the text as “a significant step in the right direction”. He acknowledged that the draft sought “to achieve the maximum of what is realistically possible”, but criticised its failure to increase the degree of involvement by the Parliament and the European Court of Justice in the field of justice and home affairs.

FOREIGN ministers discussed the lines they want Commission President Jacques Santer to pursue when he meets President Bill Clinton in the EU-US summit next Monday (16 December) in Washington. Spanish minister Ramon de Miguel stressed the need to highlight EU concerns about Helms-Burton, the American anti-Cuba law. Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, who will also attend the summit, told ministers he would insist that the Clinton Administration revoke the law altogether, because merely suspending it would not be enough.

TURNING to former Yugoslavia, the ministers agreed that Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic had given them no reason to consider extending the preferential arrangement the Union offers other Yugoslav republics to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). They examined ways to put pressure on Milosevic to recognise the results of recent Serbian local elections which have gone against the regime. They also discussed the possibility of holding new elections, this time under the surveillance of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). International High Representative Carl Bildt warned of a “crisis emerging” in Serbia. The ministers declared their support for the peaceful demonstrations which have been staged in Belgrade, adding that the EU would insist on democratic freedoms for Serbs before it would make any financial or political contributions to Serbia.

CONFIRMING their desire to develop a “strong political and economic relationship with Ukraine”, foreign ministers decided it was time to put the EU's 'action plan' with Ukraine into effect. The plan includes supporting democratic and economic reform, developing trade and reforming the country's energy sector. The Union's aim, they reiterated, was “continually improving relations which will contribute to the development of a stable, independent, democratic, market-oriented, non-nuclear-weapons state and of undisputed territorial integrity”.

ACTION plans in Russia have been working well for the past six months, foreign ministers agreed, noting particularly that Europeans have begun training Russians in legal questions. They confirmed the need to get the EU-Russia partnership and cooperation accord (mostly economic provisions) into force as soon as possible in order to develop Russia's economy, cut down its trade barriers and get it into the World Trade Organisation. They also decided to study the justice and internal security needs of former Soviet republics, giving particular emphasis to organised crime and immigration.

MINISTERS approved the Commission's plans to send 20 million ecu of aid to Bulgaria to help it weather its severe economic crisis. The aid, to be sent through the Phare programme, is designed to help the poorest populations get through the winter. In addition to rampant inflation and a currency collapse, food shortages are expected to start in Bulgaria in February.