Brussels, 19/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The General Affairs Council welcomed the results of the Doha meeting, Louis Michel told the press on Monday. He stressed the "perfect cohesion and very effective solidarity" shown by the EU during the WTO ministerial conference.
Speaking of the enlargement issue that the ministers tackled in the presence of Commissioner Günter Verheugen, the Council President said the ministers had mainly insisted on the relevance of the Commission's approach and on the need to maintain the pace of negotiations. Mr Michel also welcomed the "balanced approach" regarding Turkey, mainly on the progress to be made by Turkey on the Cyprus problem (he stressed in passing the importance of the next meeting between Mr Denktash and Mr Clerides under the aegis of the UN), and relations between the EU and NATO. It should be noted that, during the Council meeting, French Minister Hubert Védrine raised the question of the need, with a view to accession by ten new countries from 2004, to maintain a difference for the two other countries at the negotiating table (Bulgaria and Romania), whose accession would not come till later.
On the question of the future of Europe, Mr Michel said his colleagues had warmly welcomed the sketch of the three-section general structure of the future declaration of Laeken presented by the Belgian Presidency. On the whole, they expressed their support for opening the debate on proposals setting out the four themes of the Nice declaration, he explained. He went on to affirm that the work of the future IGC Convention to follow should therefore be on "nothing but Nice but all Nice", that is: "the four themes with the 'notably' which is not eliminated". He went on to add that the declaration should comprise a "list of political, open and neutral questions" that the "Convention will go into in greater detail". The delegations mainly insisted, according to the summary by Louis Michel, on: - respect of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality; - the legitimacy of the European Parliament and connection with the national parliaments; - a better place for the national parliaments; - not bringing the acquis into question; - reinforcement of the Union's external policy; - greater effectiveness of the decision-making process. The debate, which was rather long, seems to indicate that three tendencies are becoming obvious: (1) the countries that hoped for a wide debate (Benelux) if not giving a free hand to the Convention (Germany, Austria and Sweden expressed themselves along these lines); (2) the United Kingdom and Ireland, which hoped the Convention's mandate would remain within the framework of the declaration of Nice and would not re-open the debate on the decision-making process; (3) countries that hope for a strict framework for work of the Convention (mainly France, Finland and Greece). Commissioner Michel Barnier stressed it was necessary to apprehend the four sections of Nice in a way that neither "limits" nor "reduces", and that the time between the Convention and the IGC should give the "time to digest the work of the Convention, but not to forget it". According to Mr Michel, there is a majority in favour of giving Turkey observer status at the Convention, but nothing has been decided yet, and this status could be different from that of the twelve candidate countries already negotiating.