Brussels, 26/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - The General Affairs Council meeting on Monday under the chairmanship of the Italian Foreign Affairs Minister, Franco Frattini, will focus on preparation of the European Council on 16-17 October and the relaunch of the IGC on 4 October in Rome. The External Relations beginning at the beginning of the afternoon, will focus on the situation on Iraq, the result of Cancun negotiations (see previous article), the Balkans and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). On Tuesday, the association council will meet with Tunisia (see article p 10) and the cooperation councils with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
Intergovernmental conference: the Council is expected to give "an opinion on arranging the IGC. The Presidency is seeking to limit itself to a simple point of procedure, but Finland, Austria, Poland and Hungary have indicated that their Ministers want to make a contribution. Ministers could then repeat the wishes expressed during the informal Council at Riva del Garda: issues that are there just for appearances according to the Scandinavians notably, because they think that the work proposed by the Presidency is not realistic or that they would also like to remodel several essential points of the draft constitution presented by the Convention.
Preparation of the October summit: Ministers will be examining the draft agenda presented by the Presidency. The three points on the agenda are: 1) the relaunch of the European economy, 2) Security and Legal Area, 3) External relations (EUROPE yesterday p 4). The main point of divergence focuses on economic issues. The Presidency, France and Germany are insisting that the summit helps launch a message of confidence to the markets, highlighting the need to strengthen growth. Most delegations, notably the Dutch, nevertheless, want the summit to enable more coherency in the different initiatives for growth, such as the Tremonti plan for relaunching investment in infrastructure, research and the Franco-German initiative.
Reforming the status of officials: the Council is expected to examine reforms to the status of European officials. Discussions are continuing to the end of the week with unions for the civil servants. The opinion of Germany, Austria, Finland and Denmark is also being awaited.
Iraq: While awaiting further negotiations in New York on the draft resolution on Iraq, the Council is expected to adopt conclusions that repeat the lowest European common denominator on the issue: the central role of the UN. Divergences persist on the speed of the hand-over of sovereignty to the Iraqi people: France, Germany, Belgium want a rapid transfer, while the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands are more cautious. The European Commission is expected to look at preparation of the donors conference on 23-24 October in Madrid. It is expected t present a communication on the Community's contribution on Wednesday, which should be around EUR 200 million, to which will be added the contributions of Member States.
Middle East: the Council will be discussion the situation in the Middle East in light of the discussions on Friday in New York at the Quartet in a backdrop to the UN General Assembly.
Iran: during their discussions at lunch, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs will insist on the need for the Iranian government to implement the final resolution of the International Agency for Atomic Energy on the country's nuclear programme adopted on 12 September.
Balkans: the Council is expected to adopt conclusions on the Balkans in which it will announce restarting discussions between Belgrade (Serbia) and Pristina (Montenegro) on their "questions of mutual interest", planned for mid-October in Vienna.
ESDP: as already announced (EUROPE 25 September, p.7), the Council is expected to adopt a common action on deciding to set up the police mission in Macedonia. This is called Proxima and is expected to be set up, in principle, before 15 December for an initial period of 12 months. 200 police officers from the mission will be shared between the Minister of the Interior and three regional police centres: Tetovo, Skopje and Kumanovo.
Other points on the agenda that the Council is expected to discuss include the French proposals (supported by the UK and Germany) to include a non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction clause in trade and cooperation agreements.