Mr Van Rompuy's two reasons. People have asked what the point is of having the European Council this Thursday. Why should 27 heads of state and government attend if they will not be making any decisions there? I believe that the reasons prompting Herman Van Rompuy to organise a summit are more to do with long-term policy than a few immediate and imperative questions. The first reason is to get the heads of state used to meeting within the Community framework on an almost monthly basis, as he had in fact already announced. Their direct and regular involvement in the life of the EU constitutes progress (the Parliament should also understand this) because it is necessary to avoid important or spectacular decisions being prepared in bilateral meetings between the strongest countries, and the EU being limited to taking note of these. The European Council is a Community institution and must meet regularly, even if it is sometimes just for examining important dossiers or defining general orientations. There is certainly a danger of downplaying the importance of the summit and of media interest declining, as well as the summit's profile amongst the public. It is up to Mr Van Rompuy to find the right balance between regularity and importance or lack of it.
The second reason justifying the summit is that holding an exchange of views at the highest level on these subjects is still appropriate. It is not unprecedented that debates at a European Council have focused on a point that did not figure on the agenda.
A rethink. This time, the essential point involves a rethink with regard to the EU's relations with its global strategic partners, under the banner and slogan (used by Van Rompuy in a televised message), “We have strategic partners, we also need a strategy”. He developed this concept in his letter of invitation to the members of the summit (see the following pages) and highlighted the role of the European Council for defining common objectives and interests for guiding Community action. He had already indicated that the goal was to stimulate reflection on “how the Union could exert an influence on the international stage, which is in proportion to its weight in the economic and trade arenas”. He added that this debate would be “the beginning of a process”.
It looks vague, but important and sometimes sensitive aspects could be included in the discussion. The informal preparatory meeting between the foreign affairs ministers provided a taste of things to come: the mention of the sensitive dossier involving arms sales to China (the opinions of the member states do not coincide on this point); the concern of Central and Eastern European member states with regard to fair representation in the European diplomatic service, with the exchange of views that this produced (EUROPE 10213). Would it be possible to exclude developments in Turkey from the talks? This would be an interesting debate, if everyone had the desire and frankness to really say what they thought.
Examination. The second part of this summit, namely the oral report by Mr Van Rompuy on the work of the “European economic governance” taskforce, over which he presides, may be a mere formality because everyone is aware of the aspects on which agreement has been reached and those which are still subject to divergences (see this column in EUROPE 10210). The exchange of views would become interesting if one or other of the government leaders took a position on the nature of automatic sanctions against member states that are failing to respect criteria in this connection, or if they took into consideration the overall debt of a given country (and not only the annual budget deficit). This is, nonetheless, very unlikely, given that it is the taskforce, which will be doing the talking.
Decisions in October. We are, nevertheless, aware that the European Council “decisions” will be made on 28-29 October. It is not coincidental that the programme has already being announced and that the General Affairs Council has already began preparing for it. At the end of next month, the heads of states and government will: receive the written report from the taskforce on European economic governance, which will subsequently become operational as from 1 January next; examine regulation of financial services; define the EU position for the G20 summit (11-12 November in Seoul); prepare the European position for the global climate conference (from 29 November to 10 December in Cancun) and prepare the EU-US summit on 20 November. If the common positions and orientations are defined in October on all of these points, the European Council will have proved that far from being an intergovernmental instrument, it is a Community institution capable of taking into account the European interest.
(F.R./transl.fl)