The Conference: Agenda and Policy Dilemmas

Abstract

Thus far the EU Member States do not seem to have agreed upon an official agenda of the 1996 Conference - at any rate none has been disclosed to date. The opening ceremony of the IGC in Turin conferred a mandate for the deliberations to be held by the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs and their assistants (European Commission 1996d). Presumably an agenda will be formulated and approved once that Council begins its deliberations in earnest, after the preparatory meetings of their assistants which started almost immediately after the Turin Council. Initial rumors had it that such a meeting would take place by late April 1996 as per the agreement reached at the Turin meeting. The calendar of meetings scheduled for April-June 1996 by the EU, however, suggested that the deputies of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs would devote first several weeks of deliberations per basic topic of the mandate (see Section 2), report regularly to whatever Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs is convened, not necessarily especially on IGC matters, and then prepare an agenda for the Council, perhaps in time for the next European Council in June 1996. In April-June, three broad issues are scheduled: a citizen-friendly Union, firming up the EU’s external dimension, and institutional reform (European Commission 1996e, 1). This is likely to occupy deliberations for some time before a concrete agenda on the issues to be negotiated, at least in terms of modifying the Maastricht Treaty, will become available.