As the Vienna Summit ends today, preparations are already well underway for the German EU Presidency, which starts on January 1st, and will take major decisions on the future of the European Union. Indeed the Germans have succeeded in delaying several issues so they can present a package for discussion early in the new year and for agreement in June.
One issue to be decided then, along with Agenda 2000, structural funds, the CAP and enlargement, is the much more absorbing topic of jobs for the boys. In the forthcoming divvy up the position of EU foreign and security supremo may go to Ireland, but we have little chance of the others - President of the Commission and President of the European Parliament.
Our front runner for the first is Dick Spring, but while the Government will back him, by-election consequences and all, he, in common with cute practice, hasn't declared an interest . . . yet. Factors in his favour are that the bigger countries want a small one in the job - Britain wouldn't want France and Germany wouldn't want Britain and so on; he has a proven track record in external relations; a politician rather than a civil servant is preferred; and he has a good relationship with the US. The disadvantage lies in Ireland's position on NATO - although he would be acting for the EU, not for Ireland. A team of Spring and the British civil servant Sir David Hannay as deputy is being talked of.
Currently Xavier Solana is favourite to replace Jacques Santer as EC President in a year's time, but the conservative Spanish government will have to stomach appointing a socialist, however popular it will be with European heads. Another contender is the Italian, Romano Prodi, who as a prime minister has an edge with the other prime ministers. The President of the Parliament depends on the outcome of the June 6th elections, but the British Labour MEP Pauline Green is mentioned.
But these decisions are for Germany in June. Meanwhile, two men seemed destined to hog the limelight in Vienna and for very different reasons: our own commissioner, Pee Flynn, who received plaudits for his latest employment guidelines, the main achievement of the summit, and the new German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, whom colleagues view with a mixture of bewilderment and fear. A hippy-type Green as foreign minister in one of the largest and strongest EU countries and incoming head of the foreign council was bound to cause endless speculation, and Fisher's actions to date have given his colleagues, both foreign and domestic, plenty of reason to be suspicious. He has already refined his security policy as well as his dress sense. What next, they ask?
Face to face
The secretary to the Government is no longer a faceless civil servant. Here he is - Frank Murray - presenting the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern on Wednesday with a copy of The Leitrim Guardian 1999 which he launched in his native county last night.
Paper chase
Dan Neville, FG deputy for Limerick West, wrote to the Minister for Justice John O'Donoghue seeking his email address. He got the following reply. "Dear Dan, You were in touch with me recently requesting my Department's email address. I am having enquiries made in this matter and I will be in touch with you again in the near future. Yours sincerely, John."
Strange to relate, the said email address was printed on the bottom of the department's headed notepaper along with the phone and fax numbers.
Off to Scott-land
The elections to the European Parliament take place in June and it's not only the candidates who are flexing their muscles. The institution itself is desperate to increase the vote throughout the community, because the higher the turnout the greater the credibility of Parliament and its MEPs. With this in mind, the EP is opening offices in the big members' second cities - so Berlin, Barcelona, Milan, Marseilles and Edinburgh are all getting parliament offices and the man going to Scotland is from the Dublin office.
Dermot Scott has been the deputy head of the EP office in Dublin for the past 20 years and, being a native of Ramelton, Co Donegal, has many connections with Scotland. He takes up the appointment, a sideways move since Edinburgh is not a head office, on January 5th and is very pleased to be doing so. With rotation next year he could have been off to Luxembourg or Brussels.
Scotland is an interesting place to be. While it and Wales are being treated similarly in the devolution stakes by Westminster, Scotland has attracted much greater foreign interest. There are now more than a dozen consuls in Edinburgh, including our own Dan Mulhall, and only one in Cardiff - our man Conor O'Riordan.
The elections to the new Scottish assembly are on May 6th and a new parliament is being built beside Holyrood Palace. Designed by a Spanish architect, Dermot Scott showed the model to the EP President Jose Maria Gil-Robles earlier this month. Despite having a population of five million, Scotland has only eight MEPs compared with our 15, or 18 counting the North. They are six socialists and two nationalists, but the June European elections, which may or may not be under PR now that the Lords are objecting, could bring in a Tory, of which there are none north of the border, or at least a liberal.
Scott will be raising the European profile, but there won't be a decision for a year as to whether the Edinburgh post will be permanent. So those with their eye on his Dublin job, as assistant to director Jim O'Brien, can forget it for now.
Meetings to merge
The Labour Party and Democratic Left members meet at separate locations in Dublin today to rubber-stamp their leaders' decision to merge. There will be little or no dissent in DL, but Labour members are less happy - and least happy of all are those whose seats will be at risk because of the new arrangements.
Despite the machinations at home, the Labour MEP at the heart of the matter, Bernie Ma- lone, was in Brussels this week discussing duty free, tax harmonisation and the Euro budget, which comes before the Parliament in Strasbourg next week and could cause endless hassle if rejected. The discussions took place over a working dinner on Tuesday night attended by European Commission President Jacques Santer, Commissioners Neil Kinnock, Karel Van Miert and Erkki Liikanen and the socialist leader Pauline Green who was celebrating her 50th birthday.
Snap election talk silenced
For the first time since the FF/PD Government took power 18 months ago the prospect of a snap election was mentioned around Leinster House this week. But once considered, it was quickly rejected as highly unlikely by all and sundry.
The almost unprecedented welcome for Charlie McCreevy's Budget started the speculation on whether or not Bertie Ahern should cut and run to the country on the wave of goodwill and continuing high poll ratings. The talk accelerated once the Independents, of whom the Government now has four promising to keep them in power, began to act up over mobile phone antennae on Garda stations. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be rid of them all: with a majority, Bertie could drop the PDs as well, the gamblers said.
Well, yes and no. The Taoiseach is known as the most cautious and wily of politicians. He won't call an election unless he absolutely has to. The reasons are many - FF tends to lose support during campaigns; Charlie Haughey took the gamble and lost; why tempt fate; the Coalition is working well and will prove Bertie can work with partners; a minority government is forever vigilant and no vote is taken for granted, and so on.
But then neither the Independents nor the Opposition want an election. The Independents because of the cost and because the notoriously volatile electorate could throw them out; the Opposition because they won't be ready until they have their candidates in place after the June European and local elections and because new Labour has yet to deal with inevitable teething problems and doesn't want a campaign at the same time.
Between now and June, however, expect more vigorous opposition than we have seen to date. The two-vote Government victory on mental health last month gave the Opposition a taste for what it can achieve. It wants to score more hits and knows it can do it. Labour will be bigger next session and out to challenge Fine Gael as Opposition leader. More tight votes and vigorous questioning is predicted as FG and Labour jockey for position.
Learning lots and trading places.
One privileged group got an instant top-level briefing on the breakdown of negotiations towards setting up the Northern Assembly. Bertie Ahern discussed the North with eight "staffers" visiting from the US last Monday.
"Staffers" is the word used to describe senior aides and advisers to politicians, as opposed to "interns" whom we now know to be junior aides. The group, under the auspices of Boston College, arrived in St Lukes, the Taoiseach's constituency office in Drumcondra, just after he had been speaking to Tony Blair about the crisis in the Northern talks. He told them there were three possible reasons for the hold up - the unionists were playing games, Sinn Fein were playing games or David Trimble had tripped up in bringing his own party with him. He thought the third most likely. The "staffers" were enthralled with the analysis and with the Taoiseach's answers to their questions. Meanwhile, a group of Northern Assembly members are in Boston learning the political ropes.
On the move
One of the best parties of the Christmas season takes place in The Bunker in Belfast next Monday and it's billed as the last. It's the best because the guests range from one extreme to the other and because there's always a sense of danger in that no one ever knows who will stage a protest or what row might develop. There's also a lot of booze. It may be called the last because Maryfield is closing down, but the secretariat is not shutting up shop - merely moving.
The Bunker, aka the Anglo-Irish Secretariat at Maryfield, has a colourful past. Set up in 1985, under the Anglo-Irish Agreement, mainly for Irish government representatives to deal with nationalist grievances on the spot, it has attracted the anger of loyalists for many years and at one stage had a permanent picket at its gate.
The dreary two-storey building has no underground bunker, but gained its name from the conditions in which Irish officials had to live for their own safety. For the past 14 years they have stayed indoors, rarely venturing out, even at night, and only occasionally slipping home to the Republic for a bit of R and R. In recent years things have eased, but it is still a hardship posting for the six or eight Iveagh House diplomats currently housed there among the 25 British and Irish staff.
The hosts for Monday's party are the Irish and British heads of secretariat, David Donoghue and Peter Bell. The secretariat leaves Maryfield in a couple of weeks, not because its work is declining now that peace has broken out, but because under the terms of the Belfast Agreement it must close down. No doubt much to the annoyance of its critics, some of whom may turn up at Monday's party hoping to toast the end of the dreaded body, they are all off to an office in Windsor House. Edinburgh and Cardiff now have Irish consulates, but Belfast, in keeping with its different status vis-a-vis Dublin, has the secretariat.