Evaluation of the German EU-Presidency
by Wolfgang Brauner
The main events during the 11th German Presidency of the EU since the founding of the European Economic Community (EEC) were the introduction of the euro, the conclusion of the negotiations concerning the Agenda 2000, the resignation of the Commission headed by President Jacques Santer, the EU's response to the war in Kosovo and finally the strengthening of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the further development of the European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI).
On the whole, Germany's Presidency of the EU was positively appraised, - certainly by the German government itself, but also by the other member states of the EU and by public opinion at home and abroad. By and large, the EU is considered to have proven its unity and its capacity to act, internally as well as externally. With no less than 13 summits, 8 ministerial and informal meetings and 12 conferences and ad-hoc meetings of the foreign ministers, this Presidency certainly has been the most dense of all Presidencies in the history of the European Community.
According to the official assessment by the German government, this Presidency was probably the "most successful" of all German Presidencies so far, in spite - or perhaps precisely because of - "extremely difficult" circumstances, namely the so-called "double crisis", the resignation of the Santer-Commission and the escalation of the conflict in Kosovo.
During its Presidency, Germany pursued three main objectives: first, to improve the conditions for increasing employment in the EU in the context of global competition; second, to consolidate the EU internally and prepare it for enlargement; and third, to enhance the Union's profile in external relations. The government is convinced that it made "important progress" and reached "substantial successes" in all three areas, that provide the citizens of the EU with concrete advantages and prepare the Union for "the challenges of the next century".
January 1 1999 saw the introduction of the Euro. Most observers agree that this deepening of monetary will almost inevitably lead to further political integration.
The Employment Pact, which was approved by the European Council in Cologne (June 3/4), will support and complement national measures to raise the level of employment within the EU. The macroeconomic dialogue between the relevant social partners and the European Central Bank (ECB), which was also initiated in Cologne, is likely to support this policy.
With the appointment of Romano Prodi as President of the new Commission, the EU rapidly reacted to the unexpected resignation of the Santer Commission. Beyond this swift and uncontroversial decision, this crisis will probably lead to a more transparent and more democratic EU. Thus, the reform process which the new Commission initiated, includes a code of conduct for the Commissioners.
The German Presidency as well as the Union as a whole considered the Agenda 2000 to form an integral part of the reform of the EU in order to prepare it for enlargement. It was meant to adjust the mechanisms by which the EU is being financed, determine the financial resources available over the period 2000 - 2006 and reform the two most important policies of the EU, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the structural policy.
The results that were reached by way of compromise on the so-called "Berlin-package" are as follows: the ceiling for total EU-expenditures, including the cost of enlargement, was limited to 1.27% of the EU's GDP; the expenditures for the CAP will be stabilised at an average of about 40.5 billion Euro p.a. over the period 2000 - 2006; the structural policy will be concentrated on those regions that are most in need of aid; and finally, the calculation of the national contributions to the EU's budget was modified in such a way as to better account for their individual capacity to contribute.
During the final negotiations at the end of March, plans to reform the financing and the two main policies of the EU, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the structural policy, met with very strong opposition from vested interests in several member countries. In his speech before the Bundestag on March 26 1999, Joseph Fischer, the German foreign minister, made it unmistakably clear that a failure of the negotiations and probably a major crisis of the EU was averted only because the German government was willing to pay for the unity of the EU instead of insisting on its own national interests.
The assessment of the different aspects of this package deal are still quite controversial. While the German contribution to the EU budget will decrease over the next seven years, it won't decrease by as much as was hoped for. Nor will the other three so-called net contributors (the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria) benefit substantially from the corrective measures adopted in Berlin.
As far as the CAP is concerned, due to the intransigent position of France, the already agreed reform of the milk-market was delayed at least until 2005. Also in response to French pressure, the lowering of the guaranteed prices for cereals was less significant than expected. The same applies to the lowering of the levels for interventions in the agricultural markets. Finally, France was practically the only country which opposed even a modest transition towards co-financing of the CAP, but it succeeded. As members of the German government acknowledged in the days after the negotiations, the CAP and maybe even structural policy will soon again have to be reformed in view of the WTO Millenium Round and the enlargement process. In general, one can doubt whether the 60 billion Euro earmarked for enlargement between 2000 and 2006 will be enough.
With regard to the reform of structural policy, Spain was for all practical purposes as intransigent as France in the field of agriculture. In fact, Spain's net gain from the EU will increase from about 42 billion euros to 49 billion Euros between the year 2000 and 2006. At a press conference in the early hours of March 26, prime minister Aznar explained the simple method by which he achieved this result: he just said "no" as long as an acceptable compromise what not reached, and threatened to leave the negotiations in order to accelerate the process.
The list of examples of where member states succeeded in reaching their special national interests could easily be prolonged. This tendency can certainly be explained by the fact that the stakes were extremely high. Nevertheless, as it was alluded to even by members of the SPD, chancellor Schröder might have made a tactical mistake by insisting too much on Germany's national interests which he intended to defend during the negotiations. This of course made it very easy for the other member states to take similar, more or less intransigent positions, which certainly didn't facilitate the negotiations. In the end, we come back to the evaluation made by foreign minster Fischer: a bad compromise is better than no compromise at all.
At the risk of oversimplification, one could say that the US dominated the process leading to a settlement of the conflict in Kosovo until Rambouillet, that Britain and France still mainly influenced it during the negotiations in Rambouillet, but that after Rambouillet and especially at the European Council in Cologne, the German and the future Finnish Presidencies took centre stage. The fast and effective mobilisation of humanitarian assistance, the details of the peace-settlement of the conflict and the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe are all tightly connected to the German Presidency of the EU, which efficiently used other organisations, such as the Contact Group and NATO, but especially the G-7/8, which it presided at that time as well, in order to achieve the objectives of the "international community". Martti Ahtisaari's successful mission in Belgrade with the Russian envoy Victor Tschernomyrdin underlined the fact that the EU already is an important international actor.
The war in Kosovo seems to have reminded the members of the EU of what the EU is all about. It is above all a project that aims to establish and maintain a stable peaceful order on the European continent. This recognition helped relativise national interests and pushed integration forward. Thus, this crisis, together with the resignation of the Commission, seems to have catalyzed the integration process and accelerated history in that sense.
In contrast to 1991/92, the member states of the EU this time succeeded in reaching a consensus on a sustainable common policy, including the use of force by NATO in its Operation Allied Force, probably because they realised that the escalation of the conflict in Kosovo not only put their moral credibility at risk and concerned the future of that region but actually represented a threat to their very own security. In this sense, the war in Kosovo is likely to have led to two very important realizations. First, it is now commonly accepted that Southeast Europe forms an integral part of the European continent, for which the EU takes responsibility. The Stability Pact is the expression of this. Secondly, and in the medium- and long-term perhaps more importantly, the Kosovo crisis and the role the European countries played in the military intervention have led to a greater willingness to develop a more concrete and more effective CFSP.
This more favourable disposition of the member states towards strengthening the Union's capacity to act in the field of not only foreign but increasingly also security and military policy is reflected in the major decisions that were taken by the European Council in Cologne at the beginning of June. Javier Solana was appointed as the first High Representative of the CFSP in order to make the latter more coherent but also more visible, and the first Common Strategy towards Russia was adopted in order to better be able to stabilize that country. Most importantly, the heads of state and government approved a timetable for the development of the European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI), which should become considerably more operational with the agreed upon integration of the WEU into the EU. In military terms, the main lesson learnt by the Europeans during the intervention in Kosovo, was the need to develop an autonomous military capacity in order to be able to fulfill the so-called Petersberg Tasks, including peacemaking, peacekeeping, humanitarian and rescue missions. Recent developments, such as the proposition by Britain and France to develop a rapid reaction corps and the recent appointment of Javier Solana as Secretary General of the WEU, confirm this development towards a more autonomous EU.
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