Defiant Dini focuses on jobless

Date: 11/01/1996

By Ivo Ilic Gabara

“ONE cannot imagine a monetary union with 11&percent; unemployment. This negative record must be corrected in order to have a strong and stable monetary union.”

With these words, the president- in-office of the EU's Council of Ministers ushered in the Italian presidency and declared unemployment a key priority for the country's six months at the helm.

Lamberto Dini, speaking in Rome following the traditional meeting between the European Commission and the incoming presidency this week, drew a strong link between the creation of jobs and the drive towards monetary union - stressing that the man in the street must be told that Europe means opportunities, income, growth and work, and not just sacrifices to meet the Maastricht convergence criteria.

The meeting between the Commission and the Italian presidency began on Sunday evening with a dinner hosted by the president of the Italian Republic, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, in the sumptuous hall of the Italian Capitol where the Treaties of Rome were signed in 1957.

At the time, with the Messina conference, Italy had made a significant contribution to putting the European project - derailed by the French Assembly's rejection of the European Defence Community - back on track.

This time around, the hosts were not exuding confidence. The visit by Commission President Jacques Santer and his team took place on the eve of the parliamentary debate which would decide the fate of the Dini government, and confusion reigned supreme. The only certainty was Dini's determination not to quit unless parliament pushed him out.

After Scalfaro's rejection of Dini's resignation offer on 30 December, Dini stayed on in office pending parliament's decision. The prime minister's decision was based on the understanding that the parliamentary centre-left would support him in government at least for the duration of Italy's EU presidency, and that his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right alliance was reluctant to call for a vote of confidence.

He was probably comforted in his decision by the fact that in the six previous cases during Italy's republican history of a president rejecting the government's resignation, not once has a vote of no confidence been upheld.

In his talks with the Commission, Dini therefore ignored his domestic problems and focused on the European task ahead. Stressing the importance of unemployment for the Italian presidency, Dini insisted on the need to encourage the small and medium enterprises which create 60&percent; of new jobs in the EU, education, training and retraining, the liberalisation of markets that are still closed and the development of trans-European transport networks.

Apart from the link between unemployment and EMU, Dini's other main concern is with the rules that will govern those 'in' and those 'out' of the monetary union, once the former group enters into the third stage in 1999. Dini insisted there should not be a split in Europe following 1999 and said his presidency would hold the first discussion on this issue at an informal meeting of EU finance ministers in Verona on 12 and 13 April.

The prime minister pledged that he would personally chair all meetings of finance ministers under the Italian presidency for as long as he held the treasury portfolio in addition to the premiership.

With regard to the launch of the Intergovernmental Conference in Turin on 28 March, Dini stated that preparatory work was well under way on a definition of the IGC's mandate with a view to further enlargement.

On this subject, Santer recalled Italy's past successful record with the Messina conference and the EU summits in Milan in 1985 and Rome in 1990 that eventually led to the adoption of the Single European Act and the Maastricht Treaty respectively.

As for the Union's external relations, Dini's priority areas are the consolidation of peace and the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia; the strengthening of transatlantic relations; improving relations with Asian countries; the follow-up to the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference; and the completion of agreements with Latin American countries.

Regardless of its parliamentary difficulties and true to its concern with keeping up appearances - the Italian 'bella figura' - the Dini government last week set aside 29 million ecu to give a brush-up to Turin and Florence, the cities which will host the launch of the IGC in March and the EU summit in June.