“The period of silence on the Constitutional Treaty has ended. Talks have got moving again. The state of shock prevailing in 2005 has given way to the resumption of a meaningful discussion. It was by no means always certain this would be the case”, Austria’s Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, current President of the Council of the EU, said on Sunday after the informal meeting of foreign ministers in Klosterneuburg.
“The sky is becoming brighter”, she said, describing the meeting. "The thunderclouds from last year are slowly clearing. I believe we have succeeded at the Klosterneuburg meeting in injecting fresh élan into the debate on the future of the EU.” She mentioned that, in January, she had invited the foreign ministers to communicate their ideas on the future course of this debate: “it was not possible back then to organise such a meeting. But now we have set up the base camp for the debate on the future of the EU.”
It had been one of the Austrian Presidency’s goals to gather the 25 Member States round one table to get the stalled discussions on the future of Europe moving again, according to Plassnik. “It is clear we will only be able to move forward together on the fundamental issues concerning the future of the European Union.”
She described the result of the talks as the “emergence of the first building blocks of a new consensus in the debate on the future of the EU”. The view that the plan for a constitution should be pursued as a European project had not been in dispute. “Nobody pronounced the constitution dead”, she said. The foreign ministers also demonstrated the common will to set milestones for the Constitutional Treaty. “Nobody demanded an open-ended extension of the period of reflection. By 2009 at the latest, we must have clarity regarding our new legal basis”, Plassnik declared, adding that the incoming presidencies would continue work on this matter.
The discussion in Klosterneuburg was characterised by the insight that the debate on the future had to bring the Member States together and avoid opening up new divisions. “The legal questions can only be finally solved by all 25 countries. The time for this has not yet come. This fruit is not yet ripe and we must be patient. Nevertheless, we are determined to use this time to the full on the basis of the existing Treaties”, Plassnik declared. She said the common goals were clear: not standstill, but dedicated work in a spirit of mutual trust. Thus the efficiency of the European Union is to be improved, its added value for the people of Europe more clearly identified, and greater effort invested in information and communication. It was also necessary to continue the dialogue with the citizens, according to the minister. There had been a lively exchange of views on these themes. “What was evident was the focus on the Europe of clear results, the Europe of concrete results, and the Europe of projects. This applies to all 25 Member States.” The Union, she said, was now moving from the debate on the future to the programme for the future, and there was agreement that this agenda for the future would be pursued on the basis of the existing Treaties, without any “cherry-picking” from the Constitutional Treaty.
Plassnik described the enlargement rounds hitherto as a success story and stressed that the EU would honour its commitments and promises, particularly vis-à-vis the countries of the Western Balkans. Commenting on the EU’s ability to absorb new members, she said this was not a new criterion, but something that was only natural. It was a matter of common sense that the EU, too, had to do its homework when planning to admit new members. Plassnik said the Commission would present a report on this issue in the second half of the year.
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