Rome calls for radical overhaul of EU at IGC

Date: 28/03/1996

By Rory Watson

ITALY will warn Union leaders gathering in Turin to launch the Intergovernmental Conference that radical reform of the EU is essential to prevent it being “surreptitiously transformed into a vast soulless free trade area without real prospects for its future”.

The stark warning from the country charged with getting IGC negotiations off the ground will be accompanied by an ambitious agenda to prepare the Union for enlargement and fulfil its “federal vocation”.

It calls for widespread majority voting, integration of the Western European Union into the EU and reinforced efforts on employment to prevent entire generations being excluded from work.

Italy insists that the Union's current institutional system is riddled with faults and inconsistencies, and cannot survive the arrival of new members from Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean without a thorough overhaul.

Details of Rome's ambitious agenda came amid fears that tomorrow's (29 March) largely ceremonial summit could be overshadowed by the row between the UK and the rest of the Union over the imposition of a world-wide ban on exports of British beef because of fears over mad cow disease.

But one key issue which had threatened to mar the proceedings was resolved this week, with Italy's success in brokering a deal to allow the European Parliament to be associated with the negotiations. MEPs will not participate in the talks as observers, but will be closely consulted by the presidency.