Caceres, 08/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - European foreign ministers began talks Friday evening on the funding of EU enlargement, at their informal "Gymnich" type meeting in Caceres, in Extramadure, Western Spain. Sign that talks may prove to be difficult, the arrival of some ministers was greatly delayed by bands of fog at the airport. The Council finally got under way in the middle of the afternoon, lunch being devoted to the situation in the Balkans.
Ministers unreservedly supported the efforts of the High Representative for Cfsp, Javier Solana, aimed at backing the unity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In that light, the High Representative should meet the President of Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic in Brussels on Sunday to plead for the cause of a "renewed" federation, in the name of political interests but also economic ones, said Javier Solana's spokesperson on Friday. The High Representative should stress that the path of integration into the European Union was not be facilitated by the disintegration of the Federation, she stipulated. Javier Solana said that the United States had assured him its support, when he last visited Washington.
The idea of military intervention in Macedonia, however, was only tepidly welcomed by most Member States, including Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, Austria and Finland. With Javier Solana's backing, Spain launched the idea last week of a European military force intervening for the first time, taking over from the NATO mission, Amber Fox, with aim of protecting the 120 or so European field observers. During the preliminary discussions last week, the ministers decided to come back to the issue at the General Affairs Council in March.
Javier Solana said the European Union was prepared to do all that was necessary but the decision had not yet been taken, adding that no intervention would be planned before the summer in any case. NATO will probably continue with Amber Fox until the summer at least and they would have to wait and see whether NATO would continue beyond that or whether the EU would take over, explained the President of the EU Council of Ministers, Josep Piqué. For the moment, Amber Fox is due to end on 26 March but is expected to be renewed very shortly for a further three or six months. Lord Robertson said on Wednesday that he was waiting for a formal request from the Macedonian authorities (but would be getting this during his visit to Skopje on Friday or Saturday). In a long debate in Caceres, various ministers expressed doubts and highlighted the difficult nature of such an operation in the absence of a formal agreement between the EU and NATO on how NATO's command capacities would be used. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands, especially, insisted that such an operation should not be a threat to the role of the Alliance. Portugal, for example, raised questions of a technical kind, for example regarding the absence of a communication system. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told the press he found the ideas put forward by Solana very interesting and said they deserved to be discussed. "This is not something new, since the Europeans already bear most of the burden in the Balkans", he said. He went on to add, however, that it will be necessary to take into account the position of the United States and of NATO countries which are not EU members. (Ed.: Most of the 700 Amber Fox personnel are German). German objections do not concern a "question of principle but a technical question", one German diplomat said a parte, stressing that the decision to use European military intervention must be based on an analysis of the situation on the ground, relations with NATO and the relationship between Macedonia and its neighbours.
Ministers confirmed once more that the formal decision to send a European police force to Bosnia early 2003 should be confirmed during the General Affairs Council of 18 February (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.5). Budgetary issues and the matter of political responsibility for the operation remain to be settled. In order to resolve the latter, Javier Solana proposes that Paddy Ashdown, who replaced Ambassador Petritsch as representative for the international community in Bosnia, should also represent the European Union.