Spring will seek stronger EU powers to fight drug trade

A PROPOSAL for changes in the European Union Treaty which would grant the EU new legal powers to confront drug trafficking is main initiative being prepared by the Government for Ireland's Presidency, which starts at the end of June.

The proposed Irish amendments on the drugs issue seek to remove ambiguities in the Treaty over members' commitment to customs co-operation and to provide for co-operation on a range of activities such as communications infrastructures, the adequacy of port and airport search facilities, and administrative coordination.

The Tanaiste, Mr Spring, yesterday announced the initiative on drugs at the same time as a related proposal for EU Treaty changes dealing with poverty and social exclusion.

The proposals have been tabled in the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) which is negotiating the granting of further powers to the EU institutions, building on the Maastricht Treaty.

Mr Spring, who will take over as President of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers on July 1st made clear the Government's determination that urgent action on matters of great public concern such as this could not be paralysed by Britain's action over the EU ban on British beef exports. He announced the initiative as other attempts to reinforce the EU's fight against drugs, appeared to be stalled due to Britain's BSE protest strategy of blocking decisions requiring unanimity.

Final agreement on the Europol Convention, allowing police forces to pool data on suspected criminals, had been expected on July 4th, after British objections to a role for the European Court of Justice in interpreting the treaty were expected to have been lifted. Yesterday British diplomats in Brussels made plain this would not happen.

Last night the Tanaiste said difficulties over Europol "are not new. We will not be deflected from our commitment to do all that is possible to tackle the drugs problem at European level."

On Tuesday the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, will visit the headquarters of Europol in The Hague on a fact finding mission in advance of the Irish EU presidency.

Irish initiatives on drugs and poverty are likely to face strong opposition on the grounds that they may cut across areas of policy which some member states prefer to maintain as national competences.

The new proposals were put first this week to the EU's treaty changing Intergovernmental Conference by the Tanaiste's representative, Mr Noel Dorr, and Mr Spring said yesterday that the measures "will serve to high light the particular importance Ireland attaches to the Union addressing these issues in a positive and constructive manner".

The Irish treaty amendment on social exclusion proposes that the EU should encourage co-operation between member states and, controversially, "if necessary, supporting and supplementing their action while fully respecting the primary responsibility of member states in this area". The effect would potentially be to allow a major expansion of the social policy role of the Union.

For more than a year, the Germans have been blocking funding for the Fourth Anti Poverty Programme of the Irish Commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn. The programme is a modest attempt to support pilot anti poverty projects, but Bonn argues the Union should not pay for such campaigns as they are a matter for member governments.

The proposals are welcomed, however, by Mr Flynn, although the Commission's own submission to the IGC goes further than the Irish text. The Commission is keen to see a clause in the treaty which supports social policy actions that "include" social exclusion. Such a clause would not limit EU action in support of the elderly and the handicapped to those who were also poor or socially excluded.

The Government is likely to face strenuous opposition from Britain over its suggestion that the health and education aspects of the fight against drug addiction should be transferred from the realm of intergovernmental cooperation, requiring unanimity among the member states, to that of Community competence, subject to majority voting and allowing an enhanced role for the EU Commission.