Underground resistance to EU summit

Published on Saturday 13 December 2003 00:00

IT WAS not just the negotiations which were gridlocked in Brussels yesterday. A strike by the underground workers meant the streets of the Belgium capital were clogged with Friday evening rush-hour traffic.

Inside the austere but uninspiring Justus Lipsius summit building, progress on agreeing the new constitution was just as slow.

With the exception of the former Europe minister, Peter Hain, who described the treaty as little more than a tidying up exercise, most observers have recognised that the document on the table represents a historic milestone for the European Union. It acknowledges the achievement of enlargement from 15 to 25 states and sets down the guidelines by which the EU should conduct itself for the next generation.

It is also a chance for the EU to prove that it is capable of effective decision making and not a bureaucratic jumble resistant to institutional change. For obvious reasons this is a point which has not been trumpeted too loudly in the last 24 hours.

Faced with such a tremendous opportunity to demonstrate the splendours of all things European, the assembled heads of government reacted with characteristic torpor.

When Silvio Berlusconi, whose Italian government holds the presidency of the EU, announced on the eve of the summit it would take a miracle for an agreement to be reached, his words were dismissed as a typical piece of hyperbolic brinkmanship by an Italian leader desperate to be seen as a miracle worker.

Less than 24 hours later and Jack Straw was declaring that only the Almighty, generally regarded to have even greater powers than Mr Berlusconi, would be capable of bringing matters to a resolution. It is the custom ahead of such summits to play down expectations but this time there was a sense of sincerity to the doom-mongers’ announcements.

It should be said that, for once Britain, so often the party wrecker when the EU gathers for such occasions, was not responsible for the chaos besetting this summit. Tony Blair’s red lines - issues such as defence, foreign policy, and taxation on which Britain will not surrender its national veto - are readily reconcilable compared to the seemingly intractable issue of voting rights.

Poland, in its first time at the European big table, has acted with laudable independence - or with precocious insolence depending on your point of view - by refusing to yield the number of votes it holds on the council of ministers. This truculence has infuriated the German chancellor, Gerhard Schrder, who has made clear he expects better behaviour from tyro summiteers.

Talks to resolve the issue in the sidelines appear to have proved useless. Mr Blair met Jacques Chirac and Mr Schrder at the Conrad Hotel for breakfast to discuss tactics. Britain is publicly agnostic on the voting issue but privately it could prove painful for Mr Blair, making him decide between the Old Europe of France and Germany and the new Europe of Poland and Spain, who rallied behind Britain and America on Iraq.

In a brief appearance before the press yesterday, the Prime Minister gave little indication of which side he would come down on.

Prior to Mr Blair’s statement, Mr Chirac and Mr Schrder were forced to endure an uncomfortable few minutes while they waited for their official cars to turn up. It was clear this encounter had not been arranged and you did not need a degree in performance art to tell the body language between the two leaders was not good.

Circumstances have not been helped by the chairmanship of Mr Berlusconi, whose diplomatic skills have hardly improved since he compared, during the first week of his EU presidency, a German MEP to the POW camp commander from the 1960s comedy Hogan’s Heroes. At the official lunch yesterday, Mr Berlusconi displayed his appetite for the long negotiations ahead when he reportedly asked: "Why are we bothering with this? We should be talking about football or beautiful women."

Those involved in the talks suggested the chances of a deal were slim. "It is at best 50-50," said the British commissioner, Chris Patten.

There was also criticism of the Polish position. "Most countries, such as Britain, only defend their red lines in places where they know they can win. Others are perhaps starting off at the hard end of negotiations and it’s pretty tough," he said.

He advised the participants against entering a marathon session of talks in order to elicit a result from representatives too worn down to continue their opposition. This was the strategy adopted at Nice when talks finished at 4am on the Sunday. The result was the mess of a voting system which these negotiations are supposed to reform.

"I just think that if it starts getting late on Saturday night they would be better off going away and letting officials sort it out," said another British official. This would allow a further summit to be held, mostly likely in Dublin in February or March under the more amenable umbrella of the Irish presidency.

Not that this would leave Mr Blair off the hook. Once an agreement is reached on voting then the focus will be on Britain’s red lines. Mr Blair remains confident he can secure the concessions necessary to protect the national veto but even if he returns to Westminster with the spoils of a summit victory, the demands for a referendum will not disappear. Achieving an agreement is the first step. The harder challenge will be persuading a sceptical public to endorse the proposals.

The sticking points:

ALLOCATION OF POWER

France, Germany versus Spain and Portugal.

The issue is the number of votes each country has on the council of ministers.

The draft constitution proposes a new, simpler system, weighted in favour of the big four countries of Germany, France, the UK and Italy.

Britain is neutral on the issue, but Poland has threatened to veto the treaty if its concerns are not met.

THE COMMISSION

France and Germany versus the Scandinavian, Baltic states and Malta.

At the moment each country is granted one or two commissioners depending on their size. The draft treaty proposes each country appointing one commissioner but only 15 having voting rights.

The smaller countries claim they will lose their voice in Brussels and are holding out for one vote per commissioner.

QUALIFIED MAJORITY VOTING

Britain and the Netherlands versus Italy and Germany.

Britain wants to retain its veto on its red line issues of defence, foreign policy, its rebate, taxation and social security.

Tony Blair is expected to trade Britain’s support for the EU defence policy for an agreement to retain the national veto.

GOD

Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Poland versus France.

The Catholic countries want the new constitution to make reference that Europe is a predominantly Christian area.

France is implacably opposed to any reference which would infringe upon its secular status.

Expect a New Labour-rish phrase referring to a "multi-faith society of shared values" etc.