Dutch presidency themes emerge

Date: 21/11/1996

By Karolien Graaf

WHEN the European Commission discusses how to approach the forthcoming Dutch presi-dency of the EU later this month, it is sure to like most of what it sees.

The Dutch government and parliament are still putting the finishing touches to their presidency programme, under the guidance of Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo, but the main themes for their six-month term at the helm of Union business, which starts on 1 January, have already been unveiled.

Priding itself as one of the Union's most loyal member states, the Netherlands throws itself wholeheartedly behind the concept of further European integration.

Only two months ago, the Dutch government - the so-called 'purple cabinet' which units the labour, liberal and centrist parties - proudly accompanied the presentation of its 1997 budget with an announcement that entry into economic and monetary union would be no problem.

“The future of Europe is our future,” was the first sentence of Queen Beatrix's annual set-piece speech from the throne as she presented her government's budget on the third Tuesday of September, known as Prinsjesdag.

The odds are that the Intergovernmental Conference on Union reform, launched in March under the Italian presidency, will be completed for the second time in a row under Dutch supervision.

Unlike in 1991, however, when the Germans and the French took over and remoulded the then Dutch federalist plan into something more workable and acceptable - a day which has been dubbed in Dutch political circles 'Black Monday' - this time the Dutch government's approach will be communautaire.

Polishing off the IGC in time for the Amsterdam summit in June will top the Dutch presidency agenda.

Within the IGC, the government's preference is for a deepening of institutional integration before enlarging the Union into central and eastern Europe.

“In my opinion, we must create scope for strengthened cooperation within the Union for those who want to proceed further along that path,” Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok said in a recent keynote speech outlining his views on Europe. He insisted that before reforming the EU's financing system and the Common Agricultural Policy, major institutional changes were required.

Calling for member states to be freed of the “tyranny” of decision-making by unanimity, Kok urged a strengthening of the Commission's powers and the extension of the European Parliament's right of co-decision.

At the same time, the Dutch are keen to see an improvement in the functioning of the EU's second and third pillars - namely common foreign and security policy and cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.

In the areas of visas, asylum and immigration policy, the IGC should take the “opportunity to adopt a Community approach to the three issues” - meaning an extension of the Commission's right of initiative, while decisions would remain in the hands of the Council of Ministers and Parliament and judicial matters would be resolved in the European Court of Justice.

The Dutch will, however, take a tough line on EU budgetary spending. They demonstrated this hard-line approach earlier this year by resisting Commission President Jacques Santer's idea of transferring 2 billion ecu of the CAP's financial leftovers to help fund Trans-European Networks.

As the EU's second largest net contributor and, the government claims, the highest per-capita donor, the Netherlands would rather have its money back and decide itself where to spend it.

The recent report from the Court of Auditors revealing mismanagement of EU money by other member states reignited debate in the Netherlands on the need for more effective management of the Union budget.

It has even been suggested that the Dutch government will ask for a study into alternative ways of financing the budget, as an early shot in the looming battle over the revision the EU's financial perspectives for the years after 2000.

The Hague will also be certain to fight hard to secure deals to open up the Union's gas supply and postal services market to competition, given that the Netherlands now boasts two of the continent's major players in these markets in the form of Gasunie and the newly-merged PTT Post and delivery firm TNT.