The shape of things to come

Date: 12/06/1997

THREE general elections in the past month and three new governments - the European Union has never before seen so much political change concentrated in so short a time.

The impact of the new faces and policies on the Intergovernmental Conference on treaty reform and the Union's longer-term future will vary from country to country.

The change of government in Ireland later this month will cause the least disturbance, given the remarkable degree of convergence on EU policies between the major parties.

The defeated Fine Gael Prime Minister John Bruton will still be at next week's Amsterdam summit, as will his Foreign Minister Dick Spring, and sudden changes of policy are all but ruled out.

The same cannot be said of France, where the Socialists' sweeping victory is rekindling debate on fundamental issues many thought had already been decided: the 'stability pact' designed to enforce budgetary discipline in the single currency zone and reinforced efforts to tackle unemployment.

But despite the change in Paris, there will still be a degree of continuity at the top of French politics. The presence of President Jacques Chirac, albeit with his political authority seriously dented, will temper any attempt at a radical overhaul of the country's EU policy.

Secondly, the new French government contains a number of members who have experience of the Union either from previous ministerial incarnations or because, like Elisabeth Guigou, Catherine Trautmann and Pierre Moscovici, they were MEPs until two weeks ago.

The UK's new Labour government is different from its Irish and French counterparts on two counts. It has neither the policy continuity of the former (thankfully, many in the EU would say) nor does it have the latter's personal familiarity with the Union.

In one sense, the UK Premier Tony Blair and his ministers are coming to terms with the new environment.

But many of their speeches on the European stage are still electioneering in tone and appear to be seeking to reassure an uncertain British public on EU issues.

At last month's mini-summit in Noordwijk, Blair repeatedly stressed the need to defend British interests and at times sounded little different from his Conservative predecessors.

“The UK has a contribution to make to shaping the future of the Union. We have come to this conference today with an agenda of our own to help shape that future. We want a Europe that works - that works in British interests, but works,” he told reporters.

But the change of government has undoubtedly led to noticeable shifts in a number of traditional UK stances towards the Union - most significantly in areas such as social and environmental policies, majority voting and greater powers for the European Parliament - and some British Labour MEPs acknowledge that the language used by the Blair administration should reflect these realities more clearly.

“Many of the statements are still couched in the mentality of the election campaign. We need to move into a slightly higher gear if we are to become a major player. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook is one who appears to have managed to achieve this,” said one.

But another Labour MEP, Christine Crawley, does not agree with such criticism. “The Labour Party feels that the language it used during the election was a winning story and therefore it has great confidence in taking that story to Europe. It has a lot to do with the history of the way the UK has approached the language of its relations with the Union,” she argued, although she conceded: “I think that over time you will see some subtle changes in that language.”

Blair's unfamiliarity with the Union emerged in another way at the Noordwijk summit when he criticised EU leaders for spending too much time negotiating intricate institutional issues and not enough on issues of direct relevance to the public, such as jobs, crime and the environment.

The point was valid, but ill-timed. Institutional issues loomed large only because the IGC had at last reached the stage when they could be discussed with some usefulness.

Secondly, the various issues Blair raised had already featured on many previous occasions and his call for a 'People's Europe' had, in fact, first been made by Irish Premier John Bruton almost a year earlier.

The change of government in the UK has also meant a new role for British MEPs, both Labour and Conservative.

The former, after developing particularly close links with their national opposition spokesmen and women over the past two to three years, are now exploring ways to ensure those links are even closer in government.

“We are now working on a set of guidelines which will formalise links between the liaison members on the Parliament's various committees and the relevant UK departments, so that when ministers come to Brussels there will be an established procedure whereby they contact their Labour Euro MP counterpart,” explained Wayne David, leader of the UK group of Labour MEPs.

But government also brings responsibility. Recently, Labour Euro MEPs were advised by London to vote against the mutual defence of the EU's borders, the extension of majority voting and the integration of the Western European Union into the EU. These instructions were at variance with the official position of the European Parliament's Socialist Group.

“There will certainly be differences of emphasis from time to time,” admitted David. “But I do not see schisms as there is good will on both sides and our liaison structure helps us to talk through differences.”

While UK Labour politicians are still coming to grips with the new situation, their Conservative opponents are enjoying the freedom from office to undertake a fundamental reappraisal of the party's policy towards the Union.

Before this week's first round of internal elections to select a new party leader to replace former Premier John Major, the head of the small group of Conservative MEPs Tom Spencer wrote to the five candidates.

His intention was to look to the future and to the Euro-elections in 1999, not to rake over the past.

“The position which the next leader of the Conservative Party puts before the nation in May and June 1999 will have to take account of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which will have rendered debates about qualified majority voting or the extension of the powers of the European Parliament irrelevant.

Similarly, by the next Euro-elections, the timing of the single European currency will have been decided,” he wrote.

The exercise was designed to elicit the leadership candidates' views on the issues which should be Tory campaign themes in 1999, the role of Conservative MEPs and the UK's wider relationship with the Union in the short and medium term.

Such questions had never been put before and reflected the change in mood as the Conservative Party comes to terms with being in opposition for the first time since the European Parliament was directly elected in 1979.

Tory MEPs now believe that the absence of civil service backup and of UK Conservative ministers in the Council of Ministers will give them a greater input into their party's EU policy.

“The European Parliament often takes sensitive votes six months before the crunch comes in the Council of Ministers. We are now the first tier of Tory politicians who will have to make their minds up on EU issues and we will go to Conservative spokesmen and tell them what we think,” explained Spencer.

Both of the UK's major political parties are still coming to terms with the crossover in their fortunes. But they appear to be doing so in an amicable way.

Early last month, Spencer and the Socialist Group leader Pauline Green found themselves with time to kill at a Paris airport as they waited for their flight to Strasbourg. They used the occasion to brief each other over lunch on the respective challenges of controlling their colleagues when their parties were in government and in opposition.

The months ahead will provide each with the opportunity to determine how useful that advice has been.