Aznar prepares for summit début

Date: 20/06/1996

By Pedro Lopez De Pablo

THE Florence summit will be a baptism of fire for new Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, with his first EU reunion taking place against the backdrop of BSE and the political crisis it has spawned.

If that did not make things difficult enough, Aznar also has another mountain to climb: to rid himself of the shadow of former Premier Felipe González, who nearly always won victories for Spain at European summits.

As part of his preparations for this weekend's summit, Aznar has been on a whirlwind tour of Union capitals over the past month.

His series of mini-summits included a cordial audience last week with the man who will direct the orchestra in Florence, Italian Premier Romano Prodi, another newcomer, Irish Prime Minister John Bruton, who takes over the EU presidency on 1 July, and the two summit heavyweights, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Jacques Chirac.

Although he has not been to London, Aznar tipped his hat in the direction of UK Prime Minister John Major and sent him a highly political signal by switching Spain's original vote to maintain the EU embargo on exports of British bull semen, gelatine and tallow to a second vote in favour of lifting the ban.

In his first month in office, Aznar has also made two trips which underline his foreign policy priorities: a visit to Morocco and a meeting in Brussels with Christian Democrat colleagues in the European People's Party.

With these meetings, he took the first steps towards forging an international image for himself and encouraging his colleagues to forget González, who always punched above his country's weight in the EU arena.

In this respect, Florence will be a key rendezvous for Aznar, who will arrive for the jousting match with two squires well-versed in such battles: Foreign Minister Abel Matutes, a former Commissioner and MEP, and Spain's experienced envoy to the EU, Javier Elorza.

Aznar will not need to prove his commitment to Europe or economic and monetary union at the summit - he has already gone out of his way to spell out his government's approach to both - but he wants the Florence meeting to be about more than 'mad cows'.

In his briefcase, Aznar will be carrying three cards on which success at his first summit depends: Spain's chances of qualifying for single currency, funding for non-EU Mediterranean countries and the fight against terrorism.

Faced with a French-led challenge to Spain's eligibility for EMU, Aznar must raise his voice against moves to make the receipt of Union structural fund money conditional on a country's progress towards the Maastricht single currency criteria.

While the treaty allows for a link between the convergence criteria and the Cohesion Fund, it does not provide for linkage between the criteria and Structural Funds. González won a battle over the funds at the 1992 Edinburgh summit and, four years later, Aznar must emulate this by hammering home the message to his colleagues that there are no grounds for linking the two.

Spain's premier will also push for the unlocking of the MEDA funding package for the North African and Middle Eastern nations bound to the EU through the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

At Cannes a year ago, González won an agreement to allocate 4.7 billion ecu to the fund over five years. Twelve months later, the money is still sitting in Union coffers while Greece and Turkey struggle over political and territorial disputes which endanger not only the funds but the commitments made by the Union to countries such as Morocco.

Lastly, Aznar intends to fight for an accord that would pave the way for the signing of a European extradition convention making it impossible for citizens of one EU member state to seek asylum in another. Alleged Basque terrorists taking refuge in Belgium present Madrid with huge problems.