THE EU NEEDS TO OVERCOME INERTIA

Flexibility burst onto the scene as an issue at a point when the IGC was marking time. After a year no one could accuse it of bubbling over with lively debate or controversy, so it was lucky something came along to liven things up. The new buzzword was welcomed with open arms, much as subsidiarily was at the previous conference.

by Emma Bonino, Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, Fisheries and Consumer Policy

But the idea of flexibility or enhanced cooperation is not new and various theories and practical applications of the concept have sprinkled the EU's history - for example, the Tindemans Report in the early 1970s, or EMU. The issue was raised in September, 1994 in a document from the CDU/CSU group of MEPs, triggering much debate It hit the limelight last October as a result of a joint Franco German document and since then, the term has become a sort of mantra, recited like a spell to cure all ailments afflicting the Union.

The very mention of flexibility seems to trigger a set of responses. People rattle off conditions and demands even before the aims and scope of flexibility are defined. Flexibility must be compatible with the objectives of the Union, must safeguard the institutional framework, respect the rights of non-participants, foster dynamic development and avoid creating splits between the Member States. Given the lack of plain talk on the political objectives of the IGC, however, little is heard about just how flexibility could give an impetus to the Union as a whole and how it could help avoid the Europe a la carte that everyone says they abhor.

Latching onto flexibility as a panacea is dangerous. This kind of attitude could seriously jeopardise prospects for positive results at the IGC. The potential of flexibility needs to be kept in proportion and its limits recognised. In areas such as foreign policy, there are definite limits to flexibility since practical aspects are more important than regulatory ones and policies are directed towards the outside world. There is no serious political debate on the role the Union can or wants to play on the world scene. Discussions on how to improve decision-making mechanisms produce paltry results. Applying flexibility is unlikely to provide an adequate response to the increasingly serious international problems.

Member States systematically come forward in ragged formation, if not positively at odds with each other, over such issues as Yugoslavia, the Middle East, the reform of the UN and enlargement of NATO. The result is that even in crises on Europe's own doorstep, the EU ends up having little influence, except when it comes to picking up the bill.

In Albania, a smaller and theoretically easier crisis to handle than some of the others mentioned above, Europe's reflexes have been sluggish, once more demonstrating its inability to foresee and forestall events.

So that is the hard truth. Europe is virtually insignificant on the world scene. Not only is it unable to safeguard its own interests, it is also unable to provide the world with the pillar of stability it needs to underpin the geopolitical balance. Resorting to flexibility is to resort to expedients involving complicated institutional juggling the outcome of which is at best dubious.

The last thing Europe needs is flexibility. This would allow the countries of southern Europe, for instance, to develop their own Mediterranean policy, or other groups of countries to define their policies in the name of the Union. Acting in this way would institutionalise differences in, approach among Member States and diminish the Union's potential to act as a critical mass in influencing outcomes.

What the EU needs are simple and effective mechanisms. It needs institutional mechanisms that allow its shared interests to be identified, so that Member States can act together to create the fusion needed between economic and political diplomacy.

If this is what Member States want (although that is a question which calls for a proper political debate), then solutions are not so difficult to achieve from the institutional viewpoint, assuming provisions are made, if necessary, for transitional periods and special safeguard mechanisms where the vital interests of any partner are really at stake.

There are such proposals on the IGC table. These include: the joint analysis and planning u,nit, the new Troika, the mechanism for appealing to the European Council where vital interests are genuinely at stake and the progressive incorporation of the WEU in the Treaties.

What is clear is that the main objective of the negotiations is to overcome the paralysing effect of the right to veto. Doing so would allow the Union to step onto the world stage and act with necessary speed and effectiveness. If the EU persists in seeking compromises that are difficult to implement and unintelligible to the public, the Union will be condemned.to further failures. Europe would then be doomed to a slow, but inevitable decline.