Feira, 19/06/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Council In Santa Maria da Feira opened its work, this Monday, under the Presidency of Antonio Guterres, with an exchange of views with the EP President Nicole Fontaine on the IGC (see following page) and then a short debate on the Charter of fundamental rights. During the morning, the Heads of State and Government heard a report on the special meeting of the ECOFIN Council on savings taxation, gave the go-ahead to Greek accession to the Euro (see pages 9 and 10 of this bulletin) and the broad economic policy guidelines.
During their working lunch, they discussed institutional reform and Mr. Schussel raised the Austrian situation (see other article on page 10). Then, the summit broached the themes of enlargement and ESDP and it welcomed the South African President Mr. Mbeki.
Charter of fundamental rights: Mr. Herzog resigns, Mr. Mendez replaces him at Feira
- Tony Blair confirms his reservations
After the exchange of views with Mrs. Fontaine (see following page), the Heads of State and Government heard the Vice-President of the Convention, which is drafting the Charter of fundamental rights, the MEP Inigo Mendez de Vigo (Popular Party), discussed state of progress of work. He replaces the President of the Convention Roman Herzog, who had resigned due to the serious health problems of his wife (of which he later heard the news of her death). As foreseen Tony Blair reasserted his strong opposition to any integration of the Charter into the Treaty and the inclusion of these new rights in this document. As for President Chirac, he indicated that the issue of a possible inclusion of the Charter into the Treaty would be discussed after the summit in Nice; as for the content, he insisted on the economic and social rights.
The Portuguese Secretary of State for European affairs, Francisco Seixas da Costa, recognised before the press, that the Member States positions towards the Charter are very different, he felt that it would not be the present IGC who would decide whether this document should or should not be integrated into the Treaty. The summit raised the legal nature of the Charter, its compatibility with other fundamental texts, and other aspects, but we should not expect "concrete guidelines" from Feira on this issue. We will talk of this in Biarritz, he noted (during the special summit on 13 and 14 October).
The Commission spokesperson Jonathan Faull, when questioned on President Prodi's attitude concerning the Charter, underlined that the main priority is the content of the Charter. The Commission wants a clear and readable Charter, in accordance with the constitutional and legal traditions of the Member States, he said, while recognising that, to be effective, this document must be "backed up by law."
Follow-up to Lisbon: Feira summit launches a series of concrete actions
Maria Joao Rodfrigues, the advisor to Antonio Guterres who played a very important role in the preparation to the Lisbon summit, indicated to the press on Monday that, from the start of the works, the European Council in Feira launched a series of important follow-up actions to Lisbon. We have prepared a "follow-up plan" so as to concretise the decisions taken at Lisbon, she reminded, and at Feira, the Heads of State and Government had:
1. With regard to information society, supported an Action Plan for the eEconomy including 64 different measures, including the connecting of all schools to the Internet by the end of 2001, the generalisation of electronic trade, the use of information technology to improve quality of life (health, public services, "intelligent" transport) and, especially, the reduction of costs for access to the internet as of next year;
2. As for research, approved the ministers position who undertook to co-ordinate national policies in this area, so as to give research a true European dimension;
3. Ratified the European SME Charter and welcomed the EIB initiative in favour of a European economy based on knowledge;
4. Support, in terms of education, the important elearning initiative.
We are now ready to prepare the social plans to fight against social exclusion, stated Maria Joao Rodrigues, who welcomed the agreement reached after some difficulties between social partners over life-long training. All this is possible, only three months after Lisbon, in particular because we have "strengthened the strategic role of the European Council" and adopted a new method of "open co-ordination" that enables us to reach a "high level of consensus" she asserted.