Defence row looms at Nice summit

By Robin Oakley, CNN.com Europe Political Editor

NICE, France -- The EU summit in Nice was getting bogged down with a new row flaring on defence, and deadlock on constitutional reforms designed to open the way for the arrival in the EU of another dozen countries.

On defence, remarks by President Jacques Chirac, the summit host, rekindled a row with the Americans over relations between the new European Rapid Reaction Force (RRF) and NATO.

Meanwhile, the shape of potential deals to circumvent the deadlocked discussions had applicant countries alarmed that they may face further delays in their admission.

Chirac stirred the defence dispute when he insisted that there should be an "independent" planning system for the Rapid Reaction Force, the newly-launched defence dimension of the EU .

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Precise arrangements for the new force have yet to be agreed with NATO, and U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen warned earlier this week that both NATO and European security ties with the U.S. would be undermined if the EU insisted on separate operational planning for the Rapid Reaction Force.

In Nice, Chirac said that since the RRF would be undertaking operations in which NATO did not wish to participate it would co-ordinate with NATO. But it would have to be separate from NATO’s planning headquarters at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe).

Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary, has already clashed with the French over their suggestion that the so-called “enhanced co-operation” procedures for a two-tier Europe, allowing groups of European countries to go ahead with advanced integration measures, should include defence.

There was “no case” he said in Nice for the EU to “embark on a quite separate tack.”

The summit participants spent Thursday morning in talks with leaders of the 13 applicant countries for membership: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey, and a Swiss representative.

France, which holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the year, is charged with winning agreement on a Treaty of Nice, reforming the EU institutions to facilitate the running of an EU of 28 or more nations.

By opening with a meeting of the would-be members it hoped to concentrate minds on the historic objective of the summit.

But the meeting faces gridlock on the key issues: trimming the number of European Commissioners, the re-weighting of national votes, the scrapping of national vetoes in key policy areas and the authorising of a two-tier Europe by “enhanced co-operation.”

Romano Prodi has urged EU leaders to put Europe's interests first

Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, and the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder have both urged the Summit participants to put European interests first in accepting an extension of qualified majority voting (QMV).

The UK, the country with the biggest list of “red-lined” issues on which it wants to retain the national veto, was seen as their main target.

Germany is against extending QMV into veto on immigration matters, France is determined to protect its rights on international trade with a veto. But the UK has said it will not accept more QMV on taxation, social security, defence, border controls or treaty changes.

Prodi argued there was scope for change on taxation. He was not seeking to take tax policy to Brussels, he said, merely to see the adoption of more measures to help the single market to work in the EU.

One of the biggest battles at the summit is over the German demand for more votes in European Councils to reflect its greater population. Germany, with 20 million more citizens, has the same 10 “weighted” votes as France, Britain and Italy. But Chirac has been adamant that France should retain parity with Germany.

The French are hoping that the concession to Germany of a new Inter-Governmental Conference in 2004 to discuss the next round of constitutional changes might lead to the German demand being dropped.

But the applicant countries are opposing the setting of such a date. Seeing how long the present IGC has lasted, they fear further delaying tactics. Tomaas Ilves, the Estonian Foreign Minister, said that it was vital that agreement was reached in Nice and that enlargement proceeded quickly.

“The alternative -- slowing down enlargement ... will harm those governments which have taken political risks to move ahead.”

His Hungarian counterpart, Janos Martonyi, said: “We would not like to see a date set for the next inter-governmental conference, if only for psychological reasons.

"Even if we have assurances on all sides that this will not become an additional precondition of enlargement or an additional hurdle on the track, we might have some hidden doubts about that.”

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EU Nice Summit
European Union
The European Commission
City of Nice, France

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