[A-List] EU integration struggles: Hain again

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Britain 'winning battle in EU talks'

Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent
Thursday November 21, 2002
The Guardian

Britain is winning the battle against hardline European federalists in the
convention on the future of Europe, Peter Hain, the British negotiator,
claimed yesterday.

He said Britain should be more confident about its ideas and the willingness
of its EU partners to accept its vision of a Europe of nation states.

The convention of 15 delegations is chaired by the former French president,
Valery Giscard d'Estaing, and is charged with drawing up a framework for EU
development.

The talks are due to reach a crucial stage next January when the 15
delegations are due to discuss the role of the key EU institutions.

If the convention reaches a consensus by the summer, it is possible that EU
heads of state will try to complete an agreement by the end of next year, a
year earlier than planned.

However, British figures at the talks said the chances of an agreed outcome
were only 50%.

Mr Hain told the Commons' European scrutiny committee yesterday that he was
confident the federalist proposal for a commission president to be elected
either by the people of Europe or by MEPs would be defeated.

He said the proposal was based on a false model of Europe. The commission
president, currently Romano Prodi, should not be "a big political leader of
Europe", but instead an administrator responsible for the smooth running of
the commission.

Britain is pressing for a separate proposal by which the EU council of
ministers, consisting of the elected heads of state, elect a president for a
five-year term.

Mr Hain reacted cautiously to Mr Giscard d'Estaing's idea for a new congress
of national parliaments and MEPs. He said he doubted whether an extra body
would help to clarify the EU's role.

He also stressed that Britain had not endorsed the idea of a charter of
fundamental rights being incorporated into the EU treaty, and he predicted
the ambition in the treaty of an ever closer union of peoples would be
removed.

The British agenda was hugely influential inside the convention, he said,
urging British politicians to have greater confidence about the UK's ideas.

Mr Hain also downplayed the prospect of EU control of foreign policy, saying
the most strident calls for an EU foreign and security policy came from
"countries that do not want a serious foreign policy".

He said: "They just want to issue statements to the nearest TV camera and
think that in itself changes something".