Brussels, 05/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - Only two subjects are on the agenda for the last Ministerial session of the IGC to be held on Monday in Brussels. At the beginning of the week, which is expected to lead to the adoption of the new constitutional treaty by Heads of State and Governments, Foreign Affairs Ministers will attempt to obtain agreements on these two areas.
Defence. At both the Council and Commission, it is thought that Member States are "very close" to an agreement on defence, following the progress chalked up at the Naples conclave on "structured cooperation" (EUROPE 2 December p 8). Nevertheless, Ministers will be still be expected to resolve the issue of mutual assistance, which poses a problem for neutral countries. According to the last compromise proposal of the Presidency, "in the case where a Member State is subject to armed aggression on its territory, other Member States must provide it with assistance by all the means in their power". Finland, Austria, Ireland and Sweden are not happy with this idea of automatic support. Supported by other neutral countries, Finland has proposed a new formulation according to which the Member State subject to aggression could request other Member States to provide it with assistance.
Permanent structured cooperation, as described in draft Article III-213 and the draft protocol, will be open to all countries that wish, "to go further and faster to develop the capacity of the Union to conduct conflict management actions and operations" and fulfil a certain number of criteria. In particular, they must, "be able by 2007 at the latest, either at a national level or as an essential part of multinational forces, to have combat units for planned missions, worked out on a tactical level as a combat grouping, with support elements, including transport and logistics, capable of carrying out the defined missions, included in Article III-210, within a deadline of 5-30 days, particularly for responding to United Nations requests and sustainable for an initial period of 30 days that can be extended up to at least 120 days". The Article, like the protocol underlines that European policy respect NATO commitments when involving EU Member States.
Qualified majority will be used for the decision to create permanent structured co-operation and the adoption of the list of participants. Other decisions by the Council on issues involving structured cooperation will be reached by consensus among countries taking part in this cooperation. This cooperation will be published in: (http: //http://www.euitalia2003.it/FR/ConferenzaINtergovernativa/Doc1CIG.htm ).
Budget. Several diplomats have stress that for the present, the Presidency had not put any compromise document on the table because it hopes to stick to the Convention compromise, which increases the powers of the European Parliament in the annual budgetary procedure but has conserved the control of Member States on the level of resources. To varying degrees, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Estonia and France hope to give more weight to the Council, indicated one diplomat. Other Member States did not ask for changes. The Commission has clearly announced that it did not want the prerogatives of the European Parliament to be reduced. The European Parliament has sharply condemned the requests from Ecofin for a questioning of its powers, pointing out that it had already agreed to changes it thought important (EUROPE 22/11 p 12). Ministers of Foreign Affairs are also expected to debate the procedure of the adoption of the multiannual financial framework in order to find our it unanimity would effectively be abandoned for the second financial framework adopted after the entry into force of the constitution.