Dutch propose change in foreign policy vetoes

THE Dutch Commissioner for External Affairs has put the cat among the IGC pigeons with a proposal that the smaller EU member states should give up their foreign policy veto in exchange for a commitment by the large countries to conduct their foreign policy through the Union.

Mr Hans van den Broek, who was speaking on the treaty changing Inter Governmental Conference (IGC) on Saturday at a meeting in Amsterdam of the European Movement, argued that the EU treaty should reflect the reality that some member states had a real weight on the world stage, while others did not.

The commissioner said that the use of unanimity voting in Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) would lead to gridlock in decision making and the increasing reliance by the larger member states on mechanisms outside the Union to exercise their weight on the world stage. That had been the reality in former Yugoslavia, he said, with the formation of the Contact Group, and could happen again unless the Union showed itself capable of acting.

In the circumstances, Mr van den Broek argued, the interests of the smaller member states would be better served by accepting a limitation of their veto rights - maintaining them for defence issues - in return for a commitment by the larger states, France, Britain, and Germany, which would keep their veto, to work through the common structures of the Union in implementing their foreign policy.

The commissioner's proposals represents a half way stage between unanimity voting and the use in CFSP of the qualified majority vote, and, in practice, mirror the procedures of the UN Security Council, where the permanent members alone have individual vetoes.

But they are certain to cause alarm in the smaller member states, which, although willing to see a re weighting of votes in favour of the larger countries in the qualified majority voting system, are almost certain to draw the line at the creation of two tiers of members.

Diplomats here also wonder if the price is worth paying - they doubt whether the concession by the smaller states would be sufficient to get more than the most general, unenforceable political commitment from the larger countries always to act within CFSP.