Curtain rises on Union showdown

Date: 12/06/1997

CONVENTIONAL wisdom suggests that next week's Amsterdam European summit will be one of the longest and most tense on record.

Almost without exception, participants are billing the scheduled two-day meeting opening on Monday (16 June) as another in the European Union's unique series of 'nights of the long knives'.

Negotiations on the EU's future inevitably have a sense of theatre.

Leaders, particularly those new to the elite summit club, must be seen to be fighting as hard as they can for their citizens' interests. And what more visible way is there to demonstrate their tenacity than to ensure the meeting runs over its appointed deadline?

A survivor of the two previous Intergovernmental Conferences, European Commission President Jacques Santer has warned: “I am aware that it is only at the very last minute that things are finally agreed.”

Those with long memories recall the marathon IGC negotiations in Maastricht in December 1991 which finally gave painful birth to the Treaty on European Union.

Instead of drawing to a close at the normal, civilised time of late afternoon on the second day, the talks carried on into the early hours of the following morning.

If there is one abiding memory from that occasion, it is of the then Dutch Foreign Minister and now European Commissioner Hans van den Broek, glass in hand, acknowledging in equal measure the end of the negotiations and the good wishes he received for his birthday.

With new prime ministers in France, the UK and Ireland, the sense of theatre will be more dramatic than usual. But with the tough task of convincing public opinion of the value of the new Treaty of Amsterdam still lying ahead of them, Union leaders are unlikely to indulge in any exuberant posturing if they successfully crack the IGC nut in the Dutch capital.

There are, however, more substantive reasons for believing that the Amsterdam negotiations will be lengthy and tense.

The summit will be almost totally dominated by the IGC negotiations after foreign ministers and their personal representatives decided that there were a number of areas of such central importance to the Union's future that only EU leaders could rule on them.

Most of these focus on institutional issues which prompt different reactions from small and large member states, such as the number of Commissioners and voting in the Council of Ministers. They also touch on questions of national sovereignty: the replacement of unanimity with majority voting in many policy areas and the extension of the European Parliament's legislative powers.

Others have a direct bearing on the Union's future security and defence status, with governments still divided over a Franco-German plan to integrate the defence organisation, the Western European Union, into the EU.

The third major category of outstanding issues revolves around the sensitive subject of national border controls and the extent to which the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice should be given a democratic and judicial role in home affairs and justice policies.

“Everybody's main concern is that there are just so many questions which are being handed over to the summit. Will they be prepared to get into the detail and do they have enough time to settle them?” asks one senior diplomat closely involved in all the IGC's twists and turns.

Crammed in between the treaty negotiations will be some standard summit fare as EU leaders consider ways to tackle unemployment and organised crime while their foreign ministers cast an eye over some of the world's trouble spots ranging from the Congo to Albania.

But it is not just the new Treaty of Amsterdam which contains the seeds of probable discord at the summit.

What had originally been billed as the straightforward adoption of some technical and practical aspects of the future single currency now threatens to become one of the major uncertainties of the meeting.

While remaining committed to the euro and the timetable set out in the Maastricht Treaty, new French Premier Lionel Jospin is questioning the terms of the 'stability pact' worked out in Dublin last December.

Whether he will try to reopen negotiations is unclear, but it adds yet another variable to the delicately balanced deal which Dutch Prime Minister and summit host Wim Kok is trying to put together in his pre-summit tour of EU capitals.

The meeting is taking place against a background of unprecedented political upheaval.

On the one hand, it was generally accepted that substantive negotiations could not take place until after the UK general election on 1 May. But no sooner had the change of government in the UK removed one obstacle than the potential hurdle of a new French administration largely unfamiliar with the IGC exercise emerged after President Jacques Chirac's ploy of calling early parliamentary elections backfired badly.

Despite the many loose strands, the shape of the revised treaty emerges clearly from the 140-page text which the Dutch government unveiled at the end of May.

Two of the biggest breakthroughs have been the creation of the new concept of an area of freedom, security and justice - largely in response to public concern about organised crime, drugs and illegal immigration - and confirmation of the Union's new peacekeeping and humanitarian aid role.

Other innovations - reinforced emphasis on the need to tackle unemployment, to counter discrimination and promote equal opportunities, and to give the public a greater right of access to EU documents - owe much to the presence of Finland and Sweden at an IGC for the first time.

Without exception, all the participants would dearly love the curtain to fall on the IGC road show at the end of the Amsterdam meeting. Formally launched in Turin 15 months ago, it is already the longest in the Union's history. If the preparatory work carried out by the Westendorp group is taken into account, the exercise will have taken almost two years.

That record comfortably beats the six months needed to negotiate the Single European Act or the 12 required to agree the Maastricht Treaty itself.

No wonder Wim Kok insisted at last month's mini-summit in Noordwijk: “We want a treaty which is sustainable and puts the European Union in a position to move to enlargement. We are talking of a fully fledged treaty in Amsterdam.”

His thoughts were echoed in somewhat hyperbolic terms by Santer, who said: “We will be living through an important moment in history in Amsterdam. It will mark the end of the IGC and a look towards the 21st century and enlargement. For the first time in 500 years, there will be an opportunity to reconcile the continent with itself in peace and security.”

But in case the leaders are thwarted in their aim, contingency plans are being laid. The succeeding Luxembourg EU presidency has pencilled in a possible summit date before the end of July and foreign ministers are being kept on hold in case they need to explore solutions which elude their political masters.

Whatever emerges from Amsterdam, the Dutch cannot be accused of not trying to make the omens and symbolism as positive as possible.

With one eye on the future single currency, the meeting is being held in the country's central bank. Only three venues in the Netherlands are able to cater for such a large travelling EU circus, and Amsterdam was selected ahead of Noordwijk, whose facilities were considered unsuitable, and Maastricht.

“With the prospect of referenda on the treaty, there was no way it was going to be called Maastricht again,” explains former Dutch European Affairs Minister Piet Dankert.