Brussels, 04/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The last ministerial conclave of the Intergovernmental Conference on the reform of the European institutions, in Brussels Sunday evening, enabled ministers to see where the debates stood three days ahead of the European Summit of Nice. "And it cannot be said that there is a single subject that has been completed", French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, who chaired the meeting, told a press conference. "The round of the capitals (that President Jacques Chirac was ending over the weekend, see below) demonstrated that there was not a wide margin for manoeuvre on many subjects", he said, adding: "As all subjects under negotiations are linked to one another, it has not been possible to reach partial agreements, but we have gone as far was we can in compromising". Talks in Nice will be "extraordinarily difficult", but, "I believe, conclusive", he predicted.
The last summary paper presented by the French Presidency of the EU to its partners does not contain any compromise proposals on the most delicate issues of these negotiations, which are the weighting of votes in Council, the size and composition of the Commission, the distribution of seats in the European Parliament. "It is generally accepted that these subjects (…) will only be decided upon at the highest level", the Presidency explains. Regarding the subjects for which a move to qualified majority voting in Council poses problems (tax, immigration and asylum, social policy, external trade, etc.), it is still the different options being proposed. In other words, "the problems remain difficult", Mr. Vedrine stressed on Sunday. On the two subjects broached a little more in detail in the conclave (enhanced cooperation and the egalitarian rotation of Commissioners to establish should there be a deferred ceiling on the number of Commissioners), "positions have not budged", he admitted. They seem at times even to be toughening. Thus, whereas the French Presidency would have liked to finish with the issue of enhanced cooperation before Nice, that was not possible. The main difficulty concerns the setting up of such cooperation in the second pillar of the treaty (common foreign and security policy) and notably for crisis management. A majority of Member States are pleading in favour of a small number of Member States (3 or 4) being able to trigger such cooperation (against 8 States in other fields), but several States (United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Austria, notably) are categorically against.
Over the past few days, several delegations have criticised the attitude of a Presidency, perceived as arrogant and not all that willing to compromise. This nervous climate is out of place, said Vedrine. "It is not the first time before an important European Council that there is some tension. But things will calm down somewhat given the importance of the stakes (…) The atmosphere is good", he declared, at the same time rejecting the idea that France was not all that conciliatory on the issue of extending qualified majority voting in Council. "12 countries out of 15 have serious problems with applying qualified majority to such or such a subject", he said (three countries seem to have no reservations on different areas that could move to a qualified majority: Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands: Ed.).
A German uncoupling could prove to be inevitable, says Joschka Fischer
Without officially demanding an uncoupling for Germany in relation to the other large countries in the weighting of votes in Council, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer pointed out on Sunday that this solution would allow for a certain number of pending problems to be resolved. "Germany has never made of the weighting of votes a question of prestige, and were this problem only a bilateral one (between France and Germany), nothing would change", he declared as he arrived at the conclave. "But the re-weighting of votes is a problem between large and small countries and a balance has to be found (…) Germany will not agree to an agreement at the expense of the other countries. The interest of each must be seen", he added, explicitly referring to Spain and the Netherlands, two countries whose demands are very strong on the question of votes in Council (despite its lower population, Spain is demanding the same number of votes as the larger countries if Germany and France were to remain with an equal number of votes; the Netherlands would like to secure more votes than Belgium to take account of its greater population: see below).
Italian Foreign minister Lamberto Dini said that Italy was going to Nice with "an open mind", including on the weighting of votes in Council. Even though it is sticking to its proposal of a substantial re-weighting (so substantial that some small countries regard it as unacceptable, as it would give three large countries a minority block), Italy could, in the end, agree to a double majority, States and population formula.
Ms. Ferrero-Waldner: in Nice, there must be no decision on the Commission's rotation
At our meeting yesterday, "not a word was said on the weighting of votes" in Council, Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner told a small group of journalists Monday morning, adding that Commissioner Michel Barnier had made a new proposal to Article 133 (trade policy) and that, for Austria, it was important that decisions on investment be taken through a qualified majority. As for the European Commission, she said: " There must be no decision (in Nice) on the rotation" of Commissioners, even for the longer term, whereas "we can imagine a review process for the issue, once we have seen how a future Commission works. Here, we are in good company", Ms. Ferrero-Waldner noted, stating that Sweden, Portugal and Ireland were against a rotation, that Denmark, Luxembourg and Greece also want a Commissioner per country, and that "what is interesting" is that large countries like the United Kingdom and Spain consider that "it is still not time to decide what should happen with the Commission later". There must be nothing automatic about introducing a rotation, and "we absolutely do not want to commit ourselves now", the Minister repeated, adding: "we want neither rotation nor hierarchisation", as "where then would equality be", all the more necessary in view of enlargement? Everyone has to give up something, but the "large" Member States must show a certain amount of "grandeur" in these negotiations, she said.
Weight of different Member States in Council at centre of Chirac's talks in Hanover and The Hague
In Hanover on Saturday, following his talks with Chancellor Schroeder, President Chirac said in particular, regarding the "Franco-German re-balance" (the differentiation of votes between the two in Council), that, "if we have a good agreement (…) acceptable for all, as well as capable of managing an enlarged Europe (….), then there will be no Franco-German problem". As for Gerhard Schroeder, he said: "You may be sure that Nice will not be a failure due to I don't not now what difference between France and Germany".
Also Saturday, in The Hague, Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok said, having seen Jacques Chirac, that the Netherlands had not to be penalised by a re-weighting of votes in Council. "The difference must be expressed in demographic terms, especially when it is a question of a difference of over six million people", he said, speaking in favour of his country's being uncoupled from Belgium, Greece and Portugal, which all have 5 votes in Council like the Netherlands, but several million fewer inhabitants.