European Foundation Intelligence Digest, 18th

Big bang

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen,

Friendly old girl of a town

‘Neath her tavern light

On this merry night

Let us clink and drink one down

The spirit of Danny Kaye will reign over the proceedings which open today in the Danish capital – a lot of shlocky and cheesy bonhomie will conclude what promises to be a “three shirt summit” as the suits hunker down for a lot of last-minute brinkmanship over the minutiae of the EU’s agricultural policy. If Tocqueville said that dictatorship would have arrived in France when farmers are told what grapes to grow, how would he find words to describe the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy? As the Digest has been saying for years, all the key financial questions have been left until the last minute, and so the newswires have been humming in recent days with excited reports of the latest “breakthroughs” in the negotiations. So for instance Estonia (which has a population the size of about three medium-sized English towns) has won the “right” to continue fishing herrings in the Baltic sea- they are smaller than the EU “standard” herring, and therefore require a special dispensation - and also to continue hunting bears and lynx. [RFE Newsline, 10^th December 2002] The biggest issue of all, however – Poland – has also been left unresolved even as the first glasses of champagne are being sipped in the Amalienborg Palace. The Polish prime minister, Leszek Miller (Communist) went into the summit saying that his country needed more subsidies, or else he would be unable to sell EU membership to an increasingly sceptical Polish public. The Hungarian prime minister, Peter Medgyessy (Communist, former agent of the Hungarian KGB) gave a guarantee that his country would not be a net contributor to the EU budget … for the first year of membership. After that, it will pay more into the EU coffers than it takes out. Finally, all governments in the candidate states have been coordinating with each other over the dates of their referendums, so that the most Europhile countries go first, with the most Eurosceptic ones voting later on.

Pope to the rescue

According to Le Monde, the Pope is planning to “break Catholic resistance” to EU membership. On 8^th December, he called on European leaders to conclude negotiations on accession as quickly as possible; on 9^th December, in Brussels, the Commission of Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union published a declaration designed to – in Le Monde’s words – “break the last resistance of Catholics in certain candidate countries like Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Malta.” The text says that enlargement is a “historic opportunity” and that bishops should confront the scepticism towards the EU which is common in rural, conservative and Catholic areas, although the text also contains the usual bromides about making sure that the process of integration respects “national identities and the diversity of cultural traditions”. A press release about the Bishops’ statement, entitled “Hope, Trust, Solidarity”, can be viewed at http://www.conferenciaepiscopal.es/actividades/2002/diciembre_10.htm#3. Their Graces welcome the “Europeanisation” of the EU and they “commend hope, trust and solidarity in order to meet the challenges of accession.” The text goes on: “The Bishops see these accessions as the realisation of "a hope particularly cherished by the Church" in terms of the reconciliation between East and West, and a potential source of hope not only for other Europeans but also for other regions of the world.” The Church further seems to take an indulgent view of the prospect of Turkish membership of the EU. The Pope said on Sunday that “Europe can enrich itself from the cultural and religious traditions of nations which, throughout the centuries, have left us the precious common inheritance of civilisations”. The Church is also very open towards the question of Turkish membership. The only thing it says about this Muslim country is that it should respect democracy and human rights, but not that there is any religious objection to Turkish membership. [Henry Tincq, Le Monde, 12^th December 2002] When the Digest telephoned the spokesman for the Bishop’s Commission, John Coughlan, he was at pains to stress that the Church’s desire to see a reference to religion included in the European constitution should in no way be construed as being a covert way of opposing Turkish membership. He added that even when the Church speaks about referring to God as the source of values, it never means this to be understood as “an exclusively Christian God”. Mr. Coughlan insisted that the Church’s approach was therefore not “sectarian”. Although the Church spoke about values, he said, these values could come from religions other than Christianity.

In Poland, indeed, the state authorities have started to attack the main Catholic radio station, Radio Maryja. Polish state TV broadcast a highly defamatory documentary about the station’s founder, Father Rydzyk, alleging that he was involved in financial fraud. Following this, the state broadcasting authority announced that it would be monitoring the station’s broadcasts, while the Polish inland revenue has also announced that it will be conducting an audit. This investigation was announced by the deputy finance minister in person, an interesting way of observing the principle of the separation of powers. The minister, Waclaw Ciesielski said, “Our job is to find out whether laws are being broken and by whom and to stop it” [RFE Newsline, 2^nd December 2002] – although one could be forgiven for thinking that this was not the job of a government minister but of the police and the judiciary. Radio Maryja is listened to by millions of Poles and it is known for its robust defence of traditional Catholic values and for its sceptical attitude towards the European Union. It is therefore of the first importance that it should be coming under state pressure at this critical moment. We can be certain, however, that the human rights industry will not protest at these investigations: if such pressure were exerted against a politically correct media outlet, by contrast, there would be a hue and cry about threats to the freedom of the press.

Christmas Turkey

The question of Turkish accession to the EU will also be at the heart of the Copenhagen summit. The Americans have made it clear that they want Turkey to join the EU, or, to put it another way, that the borders of the European Union should be extended to Iraq. There has consequently been what the BBC described euphemistically as “a change of mood” in the EU on the Turkish question – i.e. the Europeans have jumped to. George Bush received the new de facto leader of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the White House on 10^th December. Mr. Erdogan is supposed to be an Islamist, but he seems to be welcome in every single Western capital, from Athens to the new Rome on the other side of the Atlantic. He met not only the president, but also the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice and the Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Mr. Bush also invited the new Turkish prime minister, Abdullah Gül, to come and see him in Washington: although the head of the party, Mr. Erdogan, the former mayor of Istanbul, was barred from standing for election because he once recited a late 19^th century poem about minarets being bayonets. Mr. Bush also rang up the Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who of course is the current president of the European Council, and asked him to “accelerate the procedure for Turkish admission”. The opposition to Turkish membership expressed in some European quarters, most notably by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, was sharply criticised in the American press, while the spokesman for the State Department said he hoped that the Franco-German position on Turkey would be respected, which is that a date for negotiations will be set by 2004.

Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, went to Turkey again in early December with one of Colin Powell’s deputies to have a series of discussions with their opposite numbers in Ankara about the prospect of a war on Iraq. Although 85% of Turks are hostile to such a war, it seems that the government has asked for $25 billion in aid and for concerted US support for EU membership. This seems to have done the trick: speaking in Washington, the newly victorious Mr. Erdogan repeated the standard line that Iraq would have to be disarmed, if necessary by force. During the last Gulf War, the Turks allowed the use of its air bases for US attacks on Iraq, as it has continued to do ever since. Now, though, the Americans want to use the Turkish-Iraqi border for a land invasion. They also want to prevent the Turks from moving into Kurdistan on their own. Sources close to Mr. Erdogan made it quite clear that Ankara’s position on these matters would depend largely on the support given by Washington to Turkish membership of the EU. [Patrick Jarreau, Le Monde, 11^th December 2002]

As Giscard’s blunt statement showed, however, some Europeans are unhappy with this American pressure in favour of Turkey. In particular, the losing Chancellor candidate for the German Christian Democrats, Edmund Stoiber, has said that the CDU-CSU should oppose Turkish entry. In a very clear statement, Stoiber said that any announcement of a start date for negotiations would be interpreted as having set an automatic procedure in motion. “We will use the coming year to interrupt this automatic process with a well-based discussion about the future structure of Europe,” said the Bavarian prime minister. He added that the CDU-CSU government would reverse any decisions taken by the present red-green coalition in favour of Turkish membership. “We will stop any automatic procedures that may have started and offer Turkey instead other ways of coming closer to Europe instead of EU membership.” Stoiber said that Turkish membership would overstretch Europe’s capacities and that it was opposed by a majority of the population. Stoiber said that the admission of Turkey would spell the end of political union in Europe and that it would overburden the EU economically. He added that he would make this a campaign theme in the forthcoming elections in Lower Saxony and Hessen. [Nikolaus Blome, Die Welt, 12^th December 2002]

Economic situation declines in Germany

The flow of bad economic news from Germany has still not dried up. Unions are demanding wage increases, and the Green party is distancing itself from its coalition partner, the Social Democrats, over what economic “reforms” need to be introduced to bring the country round. Some members of the Social Democratic Party want a “tax on fortune” to be introduced, similar to the one in France which charges an annual levy on people’s property including real estate, above a certain level. Chancellor Schröder has opposed such an idea, saying that it will cause massive capital flight out of Germany. But workers are having to pay up to 15% more for their pensions and so there is considerable political pressure building up for money to be taken out of the pockets of the rich as well. Some of those Social Democrats who are up for re-election in regional elections in February are responding to this pressure by clearly situating themselves on the political left. A piece of music which imitates Chancellor Schröder’s voice saying that he is now untouchable has been selling massively in Germany, an indication of the state of public dissatisfaction with the man re-elected in September. Apparently the polls now show that new elections would easily bring the CDU-CSU back to power: they have some 48% in the polls, as against 28% for the SPD. If the elections in Lower Saxony and Hessen go the wrong way for the government, Germany’s upper chamber might fall into the hands of the opposition. Government bills could then be blocked. The opposition has been keeping up a merciless campaign against the government ever since the election, accusing it repeatedly of having lied in order to get re-elected. They are doing their utmost to break apart the red-green coalition, which might happen if the Bundestag falls into opposition hands: immediately after September’s election, Edmund Stoiber said that he did not think the government would last for more than a year. The Greens have started to evoke the possibility of a Grand Coalition at their party congress in Hanover: according to the editor of Die Zeit, Michael Naumann – a former “Culture Minister” under Gerhard Schröder - this is the only way to “save the country”. [Georges Marion, Le Monde, 5^th December 2002]

Germany reduces European arms sales

Peter Struck, the German defence minister, has said that Germany will now be ordering only 60 military Airbuses instead of the 73 initially planned, and that it will be purchasing only 600 Meteor missiles instead of 1,490. These measures were announced as part of a savings package which the minister said the government was obliged to introduce in order to keep control of the budget deficit. The planes and the missiles were supposed to be for the planned European Union Rapid Reaction Force of between 60,000 – 90,000 men in which, for the time being, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg participate. Struck said that €6 billion less would be spent on procurement than initially planned for the period 2003-2006; this is out of a total defence budget of €24 billion per year. He said that other cuts in defence spending were also likely to be announced in due course. European industrialists are afraid now that the Typhoon Eurofighter and the Tiger attack helicopter may suffer from these cuts. The former is a competitor to the French Rafale and the latter to the US-made Apache AH-64. Discussions are currently being held with Britain as to whether the UK might take some of the Typhoons which Germany is no longer going to order. Germany will now take only 80 helicopters, instead of 212. The cuts in the Airbus orders mean that EADS, which makes them, now has only 180 aircraft orders on its books in eight countries. Portugal may also be cutting its orders, because its budget deficit must be cut if it is to conform the Maastricht rules. The French defence minister says that the aircraft building programme for the A-400M might be able to go ahead anyway, but that it would not be deliverable until 2009. In the meantime, the Europeans could rent American C-17s or Ukrainian Antonovs. Germany’s decision to pull out of the purchase of Meteor missiles means that that project (in which Germany has a 21% stake) might fail in the face of competition from the American missile, Eraam. [Jacques Isnard, Le Monde, 5^th December 2002]

Alain Juppé calls for referendum on constitution

The man who controls the French government from behind the scenes, the former prime minister, current mayor of Bordeaux, and president of the Union pour le Mouvement Populaire (the single right-wing party formed to support President Chirac), Alain Juppé, has said that any new European constitution will have to be approved by referendum. “Speaking personally,” said Mr. Juppé, “I cannot imagine that such a fundamental treaty cannot be submitted to the democratic approval of the European peoples, and in particular of the French people. The European idea is popular in France but it raises a lot of questions because Europe is often seen as the source of daily constraints.” Mr. Juppé said that the UMP would devote itself to a big effort towards making Europe popular and understandable to ordinary people, and to showing them that Europe is the source of many benefits.

President Chirac himself has often spoken of the need for a referendum in recent years, as the idea of a constitution gathered momentum: he referred to it, for instance, when he spoke to the Reichstag in June 2000. After the Convention opened earlier this year, Chirac said, speaking to the European Parliament in March 2002, “General de Gaulle showed us the way: everything is a matter of will. This will animates me and I nourish great hopes. The hope that the European Constitution, which should be adopted by referendum, rallies Europeans together.”

The idea of a referendum is supported by most members of the French political class, although there are some who say that there should also be a referendum on enlargement. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing seemed himself to approve the idea of a referendum on enlargement when he declared recently that previous enlargements had not been approved as democratically as they should have been. He was probably putting down a marker against Turkey being allowed in. [Henri de Bresson, Le Monde, 9^th December 2002]

Mr Prodi’s little secret

The president of the Commission, Romano Prodi, has secretly drawn up his own version of a European constitution. This extraordinary undertaking is a clear example of how the Commission oversteps its powers, because the role of drawing up the document is obviously the responsibility of the Convention. Apparently the Commission is frustrated that it has only two representatives on the Convention, while it is used to running the show. When the existence of this secret constitution was leaked, there was a furious reaction from the members of the Convention. Mr. Prodi also angered his colleagues on the Commission, because they knew nothing about this secret document either. Perhaps Mr. Prodi thinks that drawing up documents in secret is a good way of bringing Europe close to its citizens. Several commissars attacked Prodi for behaving in this way, including Mario Monti, Loyola de Palacio and Neil Kinnock. The fact that the first anyone heard about the secret constitution was through the press on 5^th December only heightened the anger. Mr. Prodi had to do battle to get the text put on the Commission’s web site. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing was particularly furious. Mr. Prodi showed him a copy of the document at the Gare du Nord in Paris last Tuesday evening (3^rd December), where Giscard was back from a presentation of the work of the Convention to the French National Assembly. He read it in the train on the way back to Brussels. When he got to Brussels, he fired off a rude letter to Prodi and cancelled their planned meeting for the following day. Mr. Prodi had to face the music on Thursday 5^th December, when he had to admit that he had cooked the whole thing up in secret and that it had not been approved by the College of Commissars. But Mr. Prodi’s document has of course undermined the official positions taken by the Commission’s representatives on the Convention. [Le Monde, 7^th December 2002]

Single sky project approved

The EU states have approved the Commission’s proposal to create a “single European sky”. This will harmonise air traffic control throughout the EU from 2005. Various European unions, especially in France, have opposed the idea and organised strikes to protest against it, but now their leaders say they have obtained sufficient guarantees from the French minister of transport. The EU also approved the amounts of money payable by airlines to passengers who have been overbooked. The reimbursement will now be €250 for flights below 1,500 km; €400 for flights between 1,500km and 3,500 km; and €600 for longer flights.

France to send more troops to the Ivory Coast

Following the despatch of British troops to its former West African colony, Sierra Leone, the French have announced that several hundred men will be sent within 72 hours as reinforcements for “Operation Unicorn” which has been in place in the Ivory Coast since the end of September. The men will have the right to open fire on anyone who attacks them, said the chief of the French armed forces. [Le Monde, 12^th December 2002]