Finland to push for wider agenda for talks on EU treaty reform

Date: 25/11/1999

By Gareth Harding

EU GOVERNMENTS' opposition to widening the agenda for next year's Union treaty reform talks appears to be softening in the face of intense pressure from the European Commission and Parliament.

At their last formal summit in June, European Union leaders agreed that the Intergovernmental Conference (ICG) should focus on the three issues left over from the Amsterdam Treaty negotiations in 1997. But the Finnish presidency is drawing up a report for next month's summit in Helsinki which goes much further.

European Affairs Minister Kimmo Sasi told MEPs this week that the presidency had an "ambitious goal" and had already "prepared a comprehensive list of matters to be dealt with in the IGC".

Aside from the issues left unresolved at Amsterdam, he said the talks should discuss allowing groups of member states to go it alone on contentious issues, dividing the EU treaty into two parts to allow some sections to be changed without the need for lengthy ratification procedures, and reforming the EU's other institutions.

There appears to be a growing recognition among Union governments that doubling the number of EU member states without tackling these issues would not only make the Commission and Council of Ministers unworkable, but would cause also chaos in the Parliament, the Court of Auditors and the European Court of Justice.

Diplomats believe there is a "clear-cut case" for strengthening the powers of the ECJ in an enlarged Union. But there is a general feeling that political pressures will prevent countries from cutting the number of MEPs they send to Strasbourg, despite the 700-member ceiling imposed at Amsterdam.

Defence and security issues are also likely to make it onto the IGC agenda if new institutional structures are needed to translate the EU's ambitious goals in this area into reality. But Finnish officials admit to being in a "chicken-and-egg" situation as they try to anticipate what type of security arrangements member states will sign up to next year.

National officials concede that the pressure for an ambitious IGC agenda from the Parliament and Commission has influenced the debate in capitals. However, member states will only be forced to reveal their hands after Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen completes his whistle-stop tour of EU capitals next week.

Drawing firm conclusions from those meetings will be far from easy, given the gulf between governments in some areas. With just over a fortnight to go until the IGC is due to be launched at the Helsinki summit, member states are still split over key issues such as whether to grant MEPs a bigger role in the talks, although most diplomats believe Parliament's role is unlikely to be boosted.

There is, however, a general feeling that two of the three issues left over from Amsterdam, namely the reweighting of votes in the Council of Ministers and the number of Commissioners in an enlarged Union, should not be too difficult to resolve. Larger member states are almost certain to give up their right to send two Commissioners to Brussels in return for a reduction in the number of votes wielded by smaller countries in the Council.

But diplomats say getting agreement on how far to extend qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council will be harder. Although Sasi believes there is now a "large majority in favour of applying QMV in almost all areas of EU decision-making," some governments are still defending their vetoes and Spain remains opposed to any extension of majority voting.

EU governments' opposition to widening the agenda for next year's Union treaty reform talks appears to be softening in the face of intense pressure from the European Commission and Parliament.