The Week in Europe 03-09/12/02

16.12.2002 | Euroskop

The Week in Europe 03-09/12/02

EU news in brief

European Commission: Integrating migration issues into the EU's external relations

The European Commission has adopted its Communication on Integrating Migration Issues in the EU's Relations with Third Countries. This Communication pioneers the approach that concerns related to legal and illegal migration need to be integrated into the external policy and assistance programmes of the EU. It elaborates how the EU's various external policies and instruments, including development policy, can make an important contribution in addressing the underlying causes of migration flows. The paper also contains a report on the effectiveness of financial resources available for repatriation of immigrants and rejected asylum seekers, for management of external borders, and for asylum and migration projects in third countries. The Seville European Council in June 2002 had asked the Commission to submit both proposals for the integration of immigration policy into the EU's relations with third countries as well as an overview of the use of existing instruments. The Communication will be presented to the next meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council on 9/10 December and to the Home and Justice Affairs Council on 20 December. For further information on external relations:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/index.htm

For further information on justice and home affairs/immigration:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/news/immigration/index_en.htm

[Background paper IP/02/1793]

Thinking of shopping cross border for Christmas presents this year? Ten tips for consumers

December 2002 is likely to see a record number of consumers taking advantage of the Internal Market and shopping cross border for their Christmas presents. For the first time ever, Christmas shoppers from 12 out of the 15 EU Member States will not even need to change money before they nip across the border to another euro area country in search of presents. And bargain hunters from all Member States can take advantage of the price transparency the euro brings when comparing prices around the euro area. But what happens when cross border purchases go wrong? To help guarantee a Happy Christmas for all Europe's consumers, Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne has published a list of the top 10 tips for cross border Christmas shopping. For the complete list see IP/02/1796.

Commission indicator forecasts euro area quarterly GDP growth of 0.2 to 0.5% for 4th quarter and -0.2 to 0.2% for 1st quarter of 2003

The indicator-based model for quarterly GDP growth for the euro area, developed by the European Commission's Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs, forecasts a range of 0.2% to 0.5% for GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2002 compared to the previous quarter. The sluggishness of consumption in the euro area captured in the model with car registrations and confidence in the retail indicator suggests maintaining the same forecast range as last month. For the first quarter of 2003, quarter on quarter growth is forecast to be in the range of -0.2 to 0.2%. This first estimate is due to recent developments in the variables used in the model, notably survey indicators both in the US and the EU, and the financial variables. However, this deceleration of growth is compatible with the baseline scenario of a gradual recovery in the course of 2003 sustained by sound fundamentals, as published in the Commission Autumn forecasts.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/economy_finance/publications/economic_papers/economicpapers154_en.htm

Previous releases of the indicator-based model forecasts can be found on:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/economy_finance/indicators/euroareagdp_en.htm

[Background paper IP/02/1794]

Commission proposes a radical simplification of how the European Union works

The European Commission has proposed far-reaching changes to the European institutions and a simplification of decision-making, while respecting the balance between European Parliament, Council and Commission. These institutions represent the three sources of European legitimacy: the people, the Member States and the general European interest. In a Communication on the future of the European Union, the Commission proposes that the role of the Parliament in legislative and budgetary matters should be enhanced. The unanimity rule in the Council of Ministers should be scrapped, and the Council should decide by a majority vote of Member States representing the majority of the EU population. The Commission's right of initiative must be reinforced in order to maintain the European interest at the heart of all policy initiatives. The foreign policy of the EU should be strengthened through a Secretary of the Union, seated in the Commission and responsible also before the Council. The President of the Commission should be elected by the European Parliament with appropriate guarantees to safeguard the independence of the Commission. The Commission should become politically accountable both to the Parliament and European Council. The text of the Communication of the Commission to the Convention is available on the President's website at:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/prodi/pdf/com_728_2002_en.pdf

[Background paper IP/02/1802]

Eurostat news releases

October 2002 Euro-zone unemployment up to 8.4%; EU15 up to 7.7%

Euro-zone seasonally adjusted unemployment rose to 8.4% in October 2002, compared to 8.3% in September, Eurostat reports. It was 8.0% in October 2001.

The EU15 unemployment rate rose to 7.7% in October, compared to 7.6% in September. It was 7.4% in October 2001. In October 2002, lowest rates were registered in Luxembourg (2.6%), the Netherlands (2.8% in September), Austria (4.1%), Ireland (4.4%), Denmark (4.7%), and Portugal (4.9%). Spain's 11.7% remained the EU's highest rate.

[Background paper STAT/02/140]

First estimates for the third quarter of 2002: euro-zone GDP up by 0.3%; EU15 GDP up by 0.4%; +0.8% and +0.9% compared to the third quarter of 2001

Euro-zone GDP grew by 0.3% and EU15 GDP by 0.4% during the third quarter of 2002, compared to the previous quarter, according to first estimates out from Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities in Luxembourg. The same growth rates of 0.3% and 0.4% respectively were observed in the second quarter of 2002. Compared to the third quarter of 2001, GDP grew by 0.8% in the euro-zone and by 0.9% in the EU15, after increases of 0.6% and 0.8% respectively in the previous quarter.

[Background paper STAT/02/141]

EU enlargement: Key short-term indicators for the 10 Acceding Countries

At the forthcoming European Council of Heads of State or Government to be held on 12 and 13 December 2002 in Copenhagen, enlargement negotiations should be concluded with up to 10 countries: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Eurostat, has published today the latest data available for a number of key short-term indicators for the 10 acceding countries, together with EU and euro-zone aggregates, among others the Inflation rates, measured by interim HICPs, growth rates of GDP in volume, external trade, production for total industry excluding construction, unemployment rates, total nominal hourly labour costs, and government deficit and debt.

[Background paper STAT/02/142]

Enlargement news

One more lap before Copenhagen

The Copenhagen countdown is coming to an end. On 12-13 December, the heads of state or government of the 15 European Union member states will convene in Copenhagen where - according to the Danish Presidency - "It seems that the European Council can complete the enlargement negotiations with ten countries: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia."

The agenda for the European Council meeting will concentrate on enlargement. In addition to formalising the conclusion of accession negotiations, it is also scheduled to agree a "package" for Bulgaria and Romania, so as to strengthen their membership prospects. This will consist of detailed roadmaps for the negotiations and increased pre-accession support. And the Council will decide on the next phase of Turkey's candidature: "Turkey's accession will take place in accordance with the same principles and criteria as are applied to the other candidate countries", says the Presidency.

"The forthcoming European Council meeting has a decisive role to play in rounding off the Danish Presidency", Denmark's Minister for European Affairs, Bertel Haarder, told the European Parliament plenary in Brussels on December 4. "After an autumn where negotiations on accession - and on very difficult issues - have been proceeding at a rapid pace, we are now nearing the decision which will set the seal on the reunification of the European continent: the conclusion of accession negotiations with the first group of candidate countries with a view to their admission on 1 May 2004."

The final, decisive negotiations with these ten countries are now under way. The Presidency has presented a negotiating package for each of the candidate countries over recent days, representing the Presidency's effort to resolve the final issues in the negotiations. And "the Presidency hopes that these packages will clear the way for the actual negotiations to be completed before the European Council meets in Copenhagen", said Haarder.

The Presidency is making no secret of the fact that the concluding negotiations are difficult. "But with the right willingness to compromise on the part of both present and future Member States, I am convinced that we shall achieve a successful outcome", Haarder said.

The heads of state and government of the candidate countries are also invited to Copenhagen, and will have meetings in the margins with their colleagues from the EU member states.

The General Affairs Council in Brussels on December 10 will fine-tune the Copenhagen accession decisions, on the basis of the discussions that the Presidency has been holding with the ten candidates concerned. The Presidency believes its package - which has not yet been endorsed by the member states - is broadly acceptable to most of the candidates. It predicted on December 6 that six candidate countries can accept it now - on condition that Copenhagen endorse the deals. Two other countries still want a bigger lump sum in budgetary compensation and two others have unsatisfied demands on quotas, direct payments and lump sum payments.

The Presidency says it has made no major changes during the last week to its improved offer of late November: four countries that would not have benefited financially on the previous calculations (the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Slovenia and Malta) are being offered an additional € 300 million altogether under the revised Presidency deal, and some quotas (but not milk or sugar) have been raised by small amounts, where candidates have provided figures that justify it. And the Presidency is prepared to extend its offer of a topping-up of direct payments at national level - by using up to 20% of EU rural development funds - so that it could be tweaked to a 20% average across the first three years, to allow up to 25% to be used in 2004, 20% in 2005 and 15% in 2006.

But some member states have objected. They say they cannot approve the financial package before the General Affairs Council, and that the Presidency has gone beyond the absolute limit. The Presidency was resigned by December 6 to leaving the financial package for final resolution only at Copenhagen. But it still hopes member states will approve everything else at the General Affairs Council.

European Commission President Romano Prodi said last week that the Commission "fully supports the Danish Presidency in its efforts to reach a compromise" on all the outstanding matters. He disagreed with member states that have complained that the offer is too generous. "Like the President of the Council, Mr Rasmussen, I consider that a reasonable offer should be made -- an offer that allows the candidate countries to defend the Copenhagen outcome before public opinion in their own countries."

Meanwhile, the Presidency and the European Commission may meet candidates on the fringes of the General Affairs Council - to discuss detailed bilateral questions ranging from state aids or cabotage to lynx hunting, and even including quotas. There are up to 100 such bilateral issues, the Presidency points out, and they need to be resolved before Copenhagen.

Life beyond Copenhagen

The Presidency is also looking beyond Copenhagen. There are to be complex formal processes for completing this wave of enlargement, for how the EU will function after enlargement, and how it will adapt itself in the intermediate period between the first accessions and the renewal of the European Parliament and the European Commission.

"After the conclusion of the negotiations, the accession treaty, a 6,000-page tome, must also be completed", the Presidency points out. This will require endorsement by the European Parliament early next year, so that it can be signed in Athens in April 2003. Then, after due ratification in member states and candidate countries, the new member states can join on May 1 2004.

The Presidency's thinking is that the new member states will then each immediately nominate one Commissioner, to be added to the current college, but without portfolio, until a new Commission is inaugurated - probably in early November 2004. "We owe it to the forthcoming member states not to postpone the accession longer than is absolutely necessary", said Bertel Haarder, Danish minister for European affairs, last week - stressing that this may mean some additional transitional arrangements, particularly for the additional Commissioners.

But the Presidency hopes for "the Parliament's understanding for the situation in which the Commission will find itself in the period between the new member states' accession and the inauguration of the new Commission" - and that the Parliament will agree that, for the period between accession and the inauguration of a new Commission, the Commissioners from the new countries will not be subject to hearings and approval by the Parliament. "In this way we can avoid prejudicing the decision to be taken by the new Parliament on the new Commission".

It would also be very difficult politically for the new member states to accept that the Commissioners whom they nominate should have to be approved by a Parliament in which they are not yet represented by voting members, he pointed out. "And with this solution, we would also avoid prejudicing the choice by the Commission President-designate of candidates to make up the new Commission."

The suggestion raised in the European Parliament to bring the elections forward from June 2004 to an earlier date such as 9 May "is not a realistic option", for reasons of EU law, the Presidency insists - although Haarder told the Parliament last week he personally liked the idea.

"The institutional questions are important to address now. This is a necessary part of the entire enlargement process. Questions concerning the voting rights of individual countries in the Council and their representation in the European Parliament are necessary aspects of the accession Treaty. There is already a need now to lay down clear provisions for the transition period. It is a question of introducing primary legislation in line with the Treaty".

On the question of the new member states' full participation in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference - which will reform the EU Treaty - the European Council has defined a clear position, says the Presidency: "We cannot refrain from giving the new member states a vote in the negotiations that will shape both their future and our common future. It would be wrong of us to do anything different."

The Copenhagen Council will also be looking at how the Council itself will function after enlargement. The Presidency will present an initial report on its reflections on question such as the use of languages, and reform of the way the Presidency operates. The Presidency's report sets out three models which the Presidency might follow in future, and includes consideration of an increased role for the High Representative and of an elected President of the European Council. But it is not intended that the Copenhagen Council should take a decision on those models. These discussions will continue into the future: the deliberations on structuring the future EU Presidency go on under the auspices of the incoming Greek EU Presidency in the first half of 2003, and the Convention on the Future of Europe will also come up with views.

Ensuring links with new neighbours

The expectations over the Copenhagen summit delivering EU enlargement are also driving a process of intense reflection on what happens beyond the future EU's borders - as leading European Commission figures demonstrated last week.

"It is important that Europe as a whole benefits from stability and welfare", said European Enlargement Commissioner Günter Verheugen. "We need an architecture of Europe's security arrangements that is not too fragmented". He said it was in the interests of the EU that future EU members in central and Eastern Europe will be joining NATO, following NATO's Prague summit in November. And the countries bordering the Western Balkans - Slovenia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria - "have a special role to play", he said. "We hope that their EU membership will have an integrating and stabilising effect on the entire region". He also looked forward to the time when Romania, as an EU member state, will be able to exert a positive influence beyond the Balkans, for example, on Moldova.

And because enlargement brings the EU much closer to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, "(o)ne of the strategic questions for the future therefore is to build up the closest possible relations with these new neighbours. We have no interest in becoming a Fortress Europe. On the contrary, we would want our neighbours to enjoy the benefits of enlargement -- political stability and economic success in particular. We do not want new division lines Europe. To this end, we need more ties, more common interests, more co-operation, in all areas", the Commissioner said.

But "this does not mean joining the EU, at least not for the foreseeable future. It means finding ways to achieve the same positive results we experienced with the enlargement preparations without putting the question of EU membership on the table…. Enlargement will certainly help us to find the right answers as to how to master this challenge", said Verheugen.

European Commission President Romano Prodi went even further. "We should open up the prospect of the Balkan countries' accession", he said last week. He also spoke of "a new system of relations between the enlarged EU and an encircling band of friendly countries stretching from the Maghreb to Russia". But he recognised that the EU must be able to answer people in the present member states who are already starting to ask "Where does Europe stop?".

Since "clearly we cannot keep on enlarging indefinitely, taking in every country that might apply to join", because of the need to maintain the EU's internal equilibrium and cohesiveness, with other countries the EU should "establish special relations under a broad proximity policy". Prodi suggested an approach based on "a broader idea of 'belonging' that will anchor stability and security, both inside and outside our borders". This, he said, could consist of a framework for "co-operation with our neighbours where we could share everything but institutions. And the economic basis for this joint political venture could be an inclusive common European economic space".

European Parliament backs enlargement priority in 2003 work programme

The European Parliament gave its support on December 5 to the European Commission's work programme for 2003 - with its insistence on making a priority of preparing for enlargement. Parliament also underlined the necessity for the Commission to monitor the enlargement process until accession of new member states. And MEPs welcomed the proposal to reassess relations with the enlarged Union's neighbours and, in particular, the priority given to the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and the improvement of relations with the countries of south-east Europe and other countries, such as Russia, Ukraine and Moldova.

European bishops call for "hope, trust and solidarity" in enlargement

The accession of ten new member states to the European Union represents "a moment of transformation in our continent's history. It will constitute a profoundly significant step towards a closer union and a new order through which Europeans of every nationality, culture and belief will be able to fulfil their hopes and can contribute to the authentic common good. For us therefore, this is not the 'enlargement' but the 'Europeanisation' of the European Union", according to a statement on the accession of new member states to the European Union by the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community, in the run-up to the European Council in Copenhagen.

"Inspired by the Gospel, and in order to meet the imminent challenge of integrating ten new Member States into this community , we commend to our political leaders and all current and future citizens of the European Union hope, trust and, above all, solidarity", the bishops said. They look forward to the debate in the European Convention - "the first occasion on which representatives of both the current and the new member states have been invited to co-determine the future of the European Union" - as an opportunity to define "the values and objectives of our common project. With hope, trust and solidarity, we as Bishops undertake to continue supporting and contributing creatively to that project and we encourage all believers and citizens to share in this common endeavour".