Austrian IGC plan not a ‘quick-fix’ solution

Date: 08/06/2000

By Simon Taylor

EU GOVERNMENTS have warned that an Austrian plan for deciding when to impose sanctions against rogue member states does not offer a quick way to end the current diplomatic freeze on Vienna.

At a meeting of Union treaty reform negotiators this week, most member states responded positively to a proposal presented by Austria which would lay down strict rules for deciding when to impose sanctions on countries which fail to live up to the EU's standards on democracy and human rights.

But they said the plan could only be included in future treaty changes, which are not due to be agreed until the end of this year and will then have to be ratified by national parliaments, and would therefore not offer a rapid solution to the Austria situation. Diplomats say most member states stressed that the scheme would not deal with "short-term problems".

Although support has been growing among EU governments in recent weeks to find a way to end the measures imposed in protest at the inclusion of the far-right Freedom Party in the Austrian government, it seems unlikely that they will agree to Vienna's request for a decision by the time Union leaders meet in Feira on 19-20 June.

Several countries said this week that the Austrian plan was superior to a Belgian proposal for a 'yellow card' system - which would involve setting up an early warning mechanism to deter countries from failing to defend fundamental democratic rights - because actual abuses would need to be documented before sanctions could be applied.

"It is better than the Belgian plan because it is more concrete. You can only apply sanctions if a country has broken EU rules," said one diplomat.

Vienna has fiercely criticised the decision by the 14 Union governments to impose sanctions without any firm evidence of human rights abuses or any other loss of democratic rights in Austria.

Under Vienna's proposal, if either the European Commission or a third of the EU's 15 governments believed that one member state was breaking Union rules, they could agree by qualified majority to limit that member state's voting rights. The country in the dock would also have the right to defend itself and the situation in the member state concerned would be kept under regular review to check if the sanctions were still justified. Sanctions would have to be both "appropriate and proportionate" to any breaches which occurred.

The Austrian plan would also prevent governments from taking steps such as the current freeze on bilateral relations with Vienna by committing Union member states to follow the procedures for agreeing sanctions laid down in the treaty. In cases where penalties were applied, the European Court of Justice would be asked to check whether proper procedures had been followed.

EU governments have warned that an Austrian plan for deciding when to impose sanctions against rogue Member States does not offer a quick way to end the current diplomatic freeze on Vienna.