Cost share-out key to Brussels summit deal

Date: 25/01/01

By Simon Taylor

PLANS to hold regular summit meetings of EU leaders in Brussels will depend on whether governments reach a deal on sharing the costs with Belgium, Union diplomats are warning.

Heads of state and government agreed in Nice last year to hold at least one summit every six months in the Belgian capital. But diplomats say other member states want guarantees that they will not end up paying more to let Belgium host the meetings than they do now to stage them in the country which holds the rotating EU presidency.

Under the accord, starting next year one summit will be held in Brussels during every six-month presidency. Once the Union expands to 18 members, all gatherings of EU leaders will be staged in the Belgian capital.

Some leaders have already expressed their reservations about the agreement, and Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson suggested that he had not approved the decision.

Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Piqué warned this week that it would be difficult to cancel one of the two summits planned for Seville and Barcelona during his country's presidency in the first half of 2002. EU officials say a possible compromise could involve holding an extra summit in Brussels during Spain's time at the Union helm.

Critics of the move argue that holding all of the EU's major meetings in Brussels, which already has a reputation for excessive bureaucracy and lack of transparency, will seriously undermine efforts to bring the Union closer to its citizens.

But diplomats claim that the plan will be accepted only if there are genuine cost savings from making the Belgian capital the permanent home of high-profile EU summits. "It is important that the transfer of the venue for European Councils does not result in increased costs to the other member states," the Finnish government said in a statement.

Union officials estimate the annual cost of hosting summits at h10-30 million and the total price tag for holding the presidency at around h75 million. They say switching the meetings to Brussels will benefit new member states that would otherwise face enormous costs in staging them. They also say enlargement countries would be able to host small-scale informal meetings as a way of showcasing themselves.

Officials say the Belgian government has offered to bear part of these costs by providing police security and finding a building to use as a permanent home for the Union leaders' get-togethers.

The scheme to use Brussels as the permanent summit site was concocted during the acrimonious negotiations in Nice last December. French President Jacques Chirac made the offer to secure Belgium's support for the treaty, which Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt had criticised for shifting the EU power balance too far in favour of large states.

Plans to hold regular summit meetings of EU leaders in Brussels will depend on whether governments reach a deal on sharing the costs with Belgium, Union diplomats are warning.