The 1996/1997 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), scheduled to be concluded in June 1997 in Amsterdam, is responsible for the revision of the Maastricht Treaty. Such a revision was foreseen in the original Maastricht Treaty, which mandated that the intergovernmental negotiations were to be started in 1996.
To prepare the negotiations, a reflection group was set up by the European Council of June 1995 to define the issues upon which the IGC was to focus.
The European Commission has described the aims of the IGC as two-fold: preparing for enlargement, and making the EU the ‘Union of the Citizens’. Both of these aims require a fundamental reform of the EU institutions.
According to the Commission:
>“The 1996 IGC will be a key encounter for Europe in its future. The outcome will determine the shape of European matters as the 21st century goes. Two factors make this deadline particularly important [...] The first challenge is obvious: to make Europe the business of every citizen. [...] Europe is no longer deciding its future behind closed doors [...] The Commission will be listening to the views of ordinary men and women, and focusing on ways in which Europe can combat unemployment, safeguard the environment and promote solidarity. Here, as elsewhere, the Commission will try to speak for the general interest.”1
These hollow pretences contrast sharply with the secrecy surrounding the IGC negotiations2 and the disappointing passages on employment- and environmental policies in the Draft Treaty which was presented by the Irish Presidency during the Dublin European Council of December 1996.3
Until now, the negotiations between the Member States’ governments have mainly focused on common foreign and security policy, as well as the integration of justice and home affairs. In the last phase of the IGC the difficult institutional reforms will be discussed. One of the tackly issues still to be resolved is the introduction of the concept of ‘flexibility’ in EU policies. Basically, flexibility means that groups of Member States can work closer together and move further ahead in certain policy fields.
1. European Commission, Intergovernmental Conference 1996, Commission Report for the Reflection Group, Brussels-Luxembourg, 1995, p.3-4. |back to text|
2. This secrecy was confirmed by the fact that the Dutch government gave in to the demands of other member states to remove information on the progress and contents of the negotiations from the official Dutch presidency’s Website. Fortunately, the documents were rescued by Dutch Green MEP Nel van Dijk. |back to text|
3. The European Union Today and Tomorrow; Adapting the European Union for the Benefit of its Peoples and Preparing it for the Future; a General Outline for a Draft Revision of the Treaties, Dublin, 1996. |back to text|