Growing optimism about IGC deal in June

Date: 27/03/1997

THE Dutch government is confident that a series of confidential negotiations between EU foreign ministers will pave the way for agreement on a new Union treaty within the next three months.

“The target of reaching agreement at the Amsterdam summit in mid-June is now very much within our grasp. There are, of course, still problems, but you can see the shape. The task is achievable,” insisted one Union ambassador closely involved in the Intergovernmental Conference on EU reform.

This growing optimism has been largely prompted by the generally favourable reaction to the Dutch EU presidency's efforts to fill in gaps, particularly on justice and home affairs issues, in the draft treaty tabled by the Irish last December.

It is also being fuelled by the readiness of governments to broach politically sensitive institutional questions for the first time.

“I can say that a vast majority of ministers gave a very positive reaction to the various addenda we tabled to the draft treaty. A number of delegations have indicated important shifts in a number of areas which will allow us to reach agreement,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo after the IGC ministerial meeting in Rome yesterday (25 March).

Saying that the IGC negotiations were now entering a final phase in preparing the way “to broker final trade-offs and compromises”, Van Mierlo singled out security and judicial matters and the principle of enhanced cooperation as areas where clear progress had most recently been made.

Despite opposition from the UK and neutral member states, support is emerging for Franco-German attempts to harden up the EU's security role through the gradual integration of Europe's defence arm, the Western European Union (WEU).

The Dutch now intend to step up the pace of the IGC talks by calling several informal negotiating meetings of foreign ministers. These will begin in the Netherlands on 6 April, when governments will be forced for the first time to face up to the key issues which must be decided to prepare the Union's institutions for enlargement.

“We prefer to have various ministerial conclave meetings, rather than hold a separate summit on the IGC before Amsterdam,” confirmed one Dutch diplomat, referring to earlier provisional plans to hold an additional summit meeting after the UK general election on 1 May. This strategy is designed to avoid the expectations inevitably generated by high-profile meetings of EU leaders.

The one major note of dissent which jarred with the semi-festive atmosphere of yesterday's celebrations to mark the 40th anniversary of the Union's founding Treaty of Rome came from UK Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind.

In an exuberant attack on a wide range of IGC proposals, he directed his most vehement criticism at moves to introduce majority voting in the foreign policy arena and to remove the intergovernmental hold over asylum, visa and immigration matters.

But Rifkind's hard-hitting comments failed to dampen spirits. “We expected that from the UK. It was an election speech and very amusing. But it is clear that the draft treaty texts now on the table are the basis for future negotiations. We will have to see if and how the situation changes after the UK election,” said one senior EU diplomat.