Internal and external tasks

The political meetings of German Chancellor Angela Merkel are being stepped up in view of the June Summit to kick start the stalled European Constitution. At the beginning of the week she met the President of the Commission José Manuel Barroso and British Premier Tony Blair, the former favourable to reviving the negotiations, the latter sceptical about the need for a fully-fledged Constitution, preferring instead a “simplified treaty”, which would not even have any need to be submitted to popular ratification. For his part German Foreign Minister FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER insists: “We need a Constitution if we want to be in a position to act”. EUROPE-USA SUMMIT. While the current German Presidency of the EU Council is absorbed with internal affairs, priority attention to external relations cannot be ignored: the annual summit between the EU and the USA is fixed for 30 April, a meeting with Russia is scheduled for May, while in June there will be a meeting of the G8, again under the chairmanship of Germany. And in view of the summit due to be held in Washington at the end of this month, the European Parliament, meeting this week in plenary assembly in Strasbourg, has fixed for 25 April a debate on the relations between Europe and the USA. Chancellor Merkel and External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who will form part of the EU delegation at the meeting with President George W. Bush, think it is essential to “intensify transatlantic relations both in the economic and in the political sphere”. Discussion in the EP will include a debate on relations with the US between MEPs, Council and Commission. “It is not excluded – says a statement put out by the Parliament – that, apart from the usual agenda, such as economic cooperation and trade negotiations, and the more political issues linked to the fight against terrorism (Guantanamo) and environmental and energy challenges, MEPs will also discuss the controversial new programme of euro-missiles promoted by the USA in Poland and the Czech Republic”. HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE WORLD. On the same day Abdul Kalam, President of the Republic of India, will also be present in Strasbourg and address the Assembly. This will be followed by a discussion in the chamber of the annual Report on human rights 2006, drafted this year by Irish deputy SIMON COVENEY . The first conviction expressed in the Report is that “greater effectiveness needs to be given to the action of the EU to solve the problems relating to human rights violations in third countries”. The Report serves to describe the human rights situation in the EU countries and in the world, to point out the limits of EU action and possibly to make recommendations to Commission and Council. It re-affirms “support for a moratorium on the death sentence” (a proposal discussed by EU Foreign Ministers at their recent meeting in Brussels) and calls for “an immigration policy that respects human rights”. A large part of the document is devoted to the denunciation of human rights violations ascertained in many countries, starting with China, Russia and Turkey. The report points out the “lack of progress” made by Ankara “as regards the exercise of freedom of religion and the full enjoyment of property rights by religious communities, the protection of minorities, freedom of expression and rights relating to the population of Kurdish origin”. The document also denounces the lack of respect for fundamental civil liberties in Belarus and, beyond the frontiers of the continent, in various states such as Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Sri Lanka, Darfur, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Iran, and Uzbekistan. ZAGREB’S RAPPROCHEMENT WITH THE EU. “Good progress” at the economic, legal and political level; “persistent difficulties” in relation to the work of the International Penal Tribunal and to relations with Slovenia on maritime frontiers. HANNES SWOBODA , Austrian MEP, is the author of a document to “evaluate the progress and limitations” in Croatia’s process of rapprochement with the European Union, submitted to the vote of the EP on 25 April. The report confirms the rapid progress made by Zagreb: but “the sore point of the report concerns once again the repercussions of the fratricidal Balkan war and Croatia’s reluctance to cooperate fully with the International Court in The Hague”. So the EP asks Croatia to solve these problems and pursue the path of conformity with the Copenhagen criteria (democracy, rule of law, market economy, etc.). Hypothetical dates for Croatia’s accession were circulating in recent days: 2009 could be the year recommended by the EP, in tandem with the adoption of the Constitution and the European elections. But accession remains conditional on developments on the Constitutional Treaty. In fact Swoboda explains that the Treaty of Nice “does not furnish an adequate basis for further enlargements”. Nor should the so-called “capacity for integration” that the EU should demonstrate before opening its doors to new members be ignored.