EU citizens' rights high on council agenda

Ireland is well-placed to help broker discussions between the Council of Europe and the EU over the latter's plans to draft a citizens' rights declaration, the Secretary-General of the council, Mr Walter Schwimmer, told The Irish Times last week.

Council officials fear that, far from enhancing citizens' rights, if such a declaration is given legal standing, it could complicate and even undermine access to the Strasbourg European Court of Human Rights.

The dialogue will be an important element of Ireland's challenge as chair of the council of Ministers for the next six months. Primarily the emphasis of the sixth Irish spell in the chair since 1949 will be on strengthening the council's traditional functions, such as the democracy mission to Kosovo, monitoring of member-state commitments, and tentative dialogue with democratic forces in Serbia and Montenegro, and the establishment of a Stability Pact for the Balkans.

The recognition of a particularly heavy agenda led to the appointment of Ireland's first full-time ambassador to the council, Mr Justin Harmon, a few months ago. He will be expected to steer the difficult discussions in the Council of Ministers, not least over likely attempts to reprimand or punish member states in breach of the commitments to the organisation. Ukraine is likely to face suspension of its Parliamentary Assembly rights in January over the conduct of its current elections and failure to honour the reform programme it undertook to pursue when admitted.

Turkey has been reprimanded over its failure to pay damages awarded by the court to an expropriated Cyprus woman and Mr Harman is already involved in discussions with their mission on the issue. Russia faces a probable censure over its Chechnya campaign.

And there are several membership applications which pose thorny problems: Bosnia and whether a functioning central state really exits; Armenia and Azerbaijan and the intractable Nagorno-Karabakh issue, compounded by the recent assassinations; even Monaco and its discrimination against foreigners over property rights.

On the budget front there are problems too. A strong consensus among key states that core spending must not be allowed to rise has not stopped governments - and events - adding to the workload and costs. The Court of Human Rights needs some £1 million more next year just to cope with the influx of cases from the east.

The current annual spending of some £160 million is half that of the city of Strasbourg. The staff of 1,700 are stretched to breaking point. Operations such as that in Kosovo will depend on the ability of the Irish and others to solicit additional voluntary contribution, and come up with one itself.

Ireland has also agreed to host a number of meetings, most notably that of the 286-member Parliamentary Assembly in Dublin in May, a conference in January on social cohesion, and one in the spring on political will and the enforcement of court decisions.