Portuguese Presidency puts the cat among the pigeons. The Intergovernmental Conference is sick. Not so much because progress is slow; the real sickness lies elsewhere. The slow pace of negotiations is not dramatic in itself; if the political will is there, the Heads of Government could themselves quite quickly decide on the two essential sticking points that today separate Member States: the number of the member of the future European Commission, weighting of votes in Council. But the atmosphere is not for compromises.
First symptom of the illness that is eating at the IGC: a certain amount of mistrust has crept in between negotiators. This we already knew in part, but the explicit and harsh denunciation came from there where we least expected it: the Council Presidency. And more precisely the person who has chaired the work at deputy-minister level, i.e. the level where for now most is happening, the only one where the Fifteen are genuinely discussing. Why has Francisco Seixas da Costa strayed from the reservation that generally characterises the presidential role, to denounce "blackmail" by large countries over the small, explicitly pointing the finger at the forthcoming French Presidency?
There are two possible explanations. Maybe he was not expecting his words, spoken at a seminar in the University of Coimbra, to have reverberated outside his country; or he deliberately wanted for the debate to break out. According to reports by the Portuguese press agency Lusa, Mr. Seixas da Costa said he was convinced that the forthcoming Council Presidency was preparing to blackmail the small countries; either they accept the reforms proposed by the "larger ones" or they will be responsible for the failure of the IGC and hence for blocking further accessions. And he called on the small countries to resist, not to be taken hostage and reject any change to the EU's decision-making mechanisms submitted to them. And Seixas da Costa is said to have added that Portugal was closer to the interests of the countries candidates for accession than of some Community partners.
In an interview with the Portuguese daily "Publico", Mr. Seixas da Costa employed a language more in line with diplomatic usage to express the same concept: "a kind of implicit political blackmail is weighing on the IGC, linked to the need to conclude by the end of the year". The suspicions of the Portuguese Presidency are possibly based on two elements: the statements by French Foreign Minister Mr. Vedrine, according to which France and Germany "are working together at examining different formulas in a comparative manner" enabling the EU to function following enlargement ("it is real work that takes time"); the observation that so far the Franco-German couple has not taken any significant initiatives in the IGC, as if they were waiting for the Presidency to move to France before acting.
The future will tell us to what extent the Portuguese suspicions are warranted, and to what extent the Franco-German proposals will in fact constitute pressure on small countries. But one thing seems certain: distrust is there.
Silent ministers. The second illness of the IGC is the absence, at least so far, of genuine debates at foreign minister level. Each Member State, or almost, has presented its initial stance; but negotiations in view of bringing these stances closer together have hardly begun. Ministers meet regularly, but only devote time to the IGC when other subjects are taken off the agenda. Certainly, they have important and at times hot subjects to deal with: Chechnya, relations with Russia in general, the Balkans, the Middle East. Must we deduce from this that foreign ministers are unable to decide on anything and that all that is essential is now in the hands of the Heads of Government, and that we should not expect anything before the June Summit? Or that some are waiting for the Presidency to move to France?
But, while the IGC treads water, something is moving around it. The European Parliament has taken a stance, and that is not negligible (even though ambiguities remain). In addition, Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt considered it necessary to intervene, with a certain amount of solemnity. For those with an interest in this intervention (and we hope they are many), we shall return to it tomorrow in this section.
Ferdinando Riccardi