Biarritz, 13/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The EU's Heads of State or Government meeting in Biarritz for their informal European Council, with the European Commission (on Friday, President Romano Prodi and the Commissioners for Institutional Reform, Michel Barnier, and External Relations, Chris Patten: with on Saturday, also the Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, Antonio Vitorino) and with the Secretary General/High Representative for Cfsp, Javier Solana, broached, for the first time at their level, the main problems facing the EU's institutional reform, confirming the need to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference in Nice, so as to achieve enlargement, and to secure ambitious results. In the light of the talks in Biarritz, the French Presidency hopes to provide "the elements of a joint communication" on Saturday - as President Chirac says in his letter of invitation - providing more precise guidelines for the rest of negotiations running up to Nice. This "methodical" discussion on the subjects of the IGC between the Heads of State or Government is very important for Europe and "for Europe's future", the President of the "General affairs" Council Hubert Vedrine told the press on Friday, while acknowledging that a great deal of time had been spent on developments at Europe's doors, especially the Middle East - which are "very dangerous" and "dire" - and in Serbia.
After talks with European Parliament President, Nicole Fontaine (see following pages), the Heads of Government had a general exchange of views on all subjects of the IGC (they managed to stick to five-minute speeches, as President Chirac had asked, Vedrine told the press) and then the specific topic of the extension of qualified majority voting (there, they did not exceed the three minutes, Vedrine noted). Discussions in the afternoon were on enhanced cooperation, the European Commission and the weighting of votes in Council.
Two things are emerging from these discussions, the French Minister for European affairs, Pierre Moscovici, told the first press conference, these are: - nobody "spoke of a block out of principle" and "everyone wants to conclude in Nice"; - "there is no question of a minimum agreement" and everyone "wants an audacious treaty". "One may hope that the "Biarritz Summit" is the "will to succeed, ambitiously". According to Moscovici, Friday's talks demonstrated that:
- the Heads of State or Government confirm the tendency to agree to an extension of qualified majority voting on a "good half" of the articles examined and most of them confirmed that this issue was "one of the keys" to success in Nice. In the afternoon, talks turned to the most difficult aspects: the third pillar, tax, the common trade policy and anti-discrimination policy. Mr. Moscovici said that French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin had expressed two "major" concerns for France: a) bringing forward the decisions made in Amsterdam on the move of issues relating to immigration from the first to the third pillar (this move was scheduled to take effect five years following the coming into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, and Mr. Moscovici recalled that this affair had led to "extremely complex debates" in the French Parliament); b) Article 133 on trade and services policy (our intention is to preserve our cultural identity, he stipulated).
- there is broad agreement on the need to facilitate recourse to enhanced cooperation, that must be a "tool for integration, not disintegration", and develop within the Community institutional framework, protected from any form of "variable geometry", notably regarding the internal market and cohesion policy. Noting that enhanced cooperation should also be able to be applied to foreign, security and defence policy, Mosocvici repeated that it had to be excluded from policies that make up the "core" of the single market. In answer to a question, he reaffirmed the enhanced cooperation had to remain "open", and is "not a prefiguration of an avant garde"
- on the "Commission's format", Member States continue to be divided by two options - that of a ceiling on its members with an "egalitarian rotation" and that of one Commissioner per Member State, with an in-depth reorganisation of the College. Mr. Moscovici said he was satisfied that the discussion had not "crystallized the gap between the large and the small countries, and that some had floated the idea that the move to a Commission with a ceiling with egalitarian rotation could be a "a solution for the future".
- regarding the weighting of votes in Council, a "slight majority" emerged in favour of a re-weighting compared to the dual majority option (States and population). …/..
Lastly, answering a question on the amendment of Article 7 of the Treaty on violations of the EU's basic rights and values (which is being discussed on Saturday morning), Mr Moscovici admitted that "one or two delegations still have doubts or reservations".
Prodi: Member States must stop tactical manoeuvres - Finland's position
The time has come to "put our cards on the table and negotiate", instead of continuing to indulge in "tactics", Commission President Romano Prodi told the press on Thursday evening, adding that he was "concerned about the lack of speed" in the negotiations and that "there is still enough time left before Nice to make the huge qualitative leap" required. Answering a journalist's question about the alleged intentions of some countries to reduce the power of the European Commission at the IGC, Mr Prodi responded: "If what you say is true, I am not happy, but I am confident that at the outcome of the negotiations we will have a good institutional balance, because without such balance, we are going nowhere. The European Commission must be in a position to do its job", he asserted.
In the debate on institutional reform in Biarritz, Finland defended an ambitious position on qualified majority, which it considers indispensable with a view to the sizeable future enlargement. This country called for the extension of qualified majority to tax matters (particularly the fight against fraud and tax evasion, and co-operation between tax authorities), trade policy, immigration and asylum and free movement of persons. According to Finland, every Member State must continue to have a European Commissioner of its nationality (this is a guarantee of the legitimacy of the Commission for Member States) and there should be neither a fixed number of maximum portfolios nor any Commissioners without portfolios, because this would create conditions of inequality. For votes in the Council, Finland favours reweighting, which seems to be a simpler and more transparent solution than the introduction of dual majority (states and population); further, this country argues that it is "very important for the smooth working of the decision-making process" that the current threshold for qualified majority should not be raised. Lastly, Finland can agree to enhanced co-operation if it is transparent and takes account of the rights of the countries not taking part and it supports doing away with the possibility for one country to veto the triggering of this mechanism, but does not deem indispensable a change in the current minimum threshold of countries having to commit to enhanced co-operation, which is fixed at half the Member States.
Concerning the composition of the European Commission, sources from the German government noted that their government is prepared to support the proposal for a Commission considerably reduced in numbers and, therefore, to give up one of the two German Commissioners and to make provision for an egalitarian rotation among Member States, to prove that the big countries are ready to make an effort. But this effort would be conditional on there being "give" somewhere else (for instance, on the reweighting of votes, in which the population criterion is decisive). British sources reported that London might also be willing to give up its second Commissioner, but they did not state a view on the method to be followed for the future Commission. The same sources confirmed that there are still questions on which the United Kingdom would never be able to accept qualified majority, including taxation, social security, defence and financing issues.
Debate on institutional reform was continuing on Friday evening and at dinner, during which the Heads of State and Government were expected to draw the day's political conclusions and return to more sensitive subjects in order to facilitate the rest of the work.
Saturday morning is expected to be devoted to the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
For the rest of the Summit work, see:
- in the next page, the remarks by European Parliament President Fontaine;
- in page 7, the results of deliberations on the situation in the Middle East (and the Biarritz Declaration) and EU aid to Serbia;
- in page 10, the content of the Commission's budget proposal for aid to Serbia;
- in pages 10 and 11, the results of deliberations on the oil situation.
Special issue of EUROPE on Sunday
The full results of the Summit, with the texts approved and reports on press conferences and declarations, will be presented in a special issue of the EUROPE bulletin dated 15 October, which will be delivered to subscribers on 16 October.