The Taoiseach indicated he was happy with the conclusions on tax policy and the duty-free industry at the end of the EU summit in Vienna on Saturday.
The Council had removed the words "tax harmonisation" from the conclusions of the meeting, he said. Instead, they were reinforcing tax policy co-operation and emphasising the need to combat harmful tax competition. "We are not aiming at achieving uniform tax rates in member-states", he said.
What that meant for Ireland, he continued, was that the single corporation tax rate of 121/2 per cent was not affected by the conclusions of this summit or the work programme that they had set themselves in the code of practice, in ECOFIN, in COREPER or in the European Council. "So that is grand," he added.
He had no problem with the code of practice or the discussions looking at unfair tax competition. What was important about this was the effective tax rate.
Turning to the duty-free issue, Mr Ahern expressed himself "rather pleased" with the outcome. From being a dead issue at the beginning of the year where there was no support whatsoever, it was now being further examined by the Commission and Council. They were to look at the negative effects on employment and address the problem, including the possibility of a limited extension of the transition arrangement. Three things had been achieved on the issue, he said. First, they had opened up the decision of 1991, not in terms of trying to renegotiate it because that was not going to change in the longer term. They had opened up the position that the whole thing was just rolling on its merry way to the end of June and nothing was being done about it.
Secondly, the Commission and other relevant groups were going to look at the issue again, particularly its effect on employment.
Thirdly, the examination had to be concluded by the end of March, during the German presidency.
Mr Ahern said he had made two points during the morning's debate on duty-free. There was no point in having any further discussions on the employment aspects of it because they all knew the effects were negative. Every examination done by ECOFIN, by the Transport Council, by everyone else showed there was an employment problem with it.
"I have no doubt that the Commission will not like all of this", the Taoiseach said. "They will continue to argue for some of the methods that they have put forward, perhaps by using some of the structural funds to help people with difficulties. "I made it quite clear this morning that the reason why nobody was taking up the Commission's proposals over the last eight years was because they were no good. I put that bluntly to the Commission", he stated.
He also didn't think there would be any benefit in looking at them again between now and March.
The possible extension of the duty-free deadline was built into the summit's conclusions. However, he had no doubt that the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, would say later that this could not be taken as definite. He had no problem with that, Mr Ahern said.
On defence and security matters, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, who co-hosted the press conference, said these issues were raised in the General Affairs Council last Monday.
"I made clear our view that the future debate would be in the context of the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty provision and, more particularly, the Petersberg tasks", he said.
It was interesting to note, Mr Andrews said, that both officials and himself were urging the presidency to take account of the positions of neutral states, particularly our own.
"Altogether, the debate in this regard, in my respectful opinion, is very abstract. It needs to be fleshed out and we need far more information arising from Portschach and St Malo", the Minister concluded.
Asked if there had been any progress on getting Mr Dick Spring appointed to the post of High Representative for Foreign Affairs, the Taoiseach said there was no formal discussion on the matter at the meeting. He had continued to talk informally to members. The appointment would be considered at the Cologne summit in June.
"He (Mr Spring) has said nothing formally about it but his name is on the short list amongst colleagues", said Mr Ahern. But, it would be a while yet before people firmed up on it. There would only be few names on the list.
The order of the day, in his view, was that the high representative job would get embroiled with other appointments to be made next June. "There is less firming up now than there was back in Portschach", he added.
Asked if he was supporting Mr Spring's name, he replied that if an Irish person could get this job "I think we must do all that we can to try to get it".
Asked to spell out the Government's approach to Agenda 2000 over the coming weeks and months, the Taoiseach said that what they had to do was to maintain as much as they could in the discussions.
They had to make sure that they got a fair package for the Objective One areas in transition "and wait and see what happens to the regionalisation proposals".
"I think on CAP that we are going to have a hell of a battle", he added. Milk and beef were the two issues. Ninety per cent of our beef was exported, half of the beef was exported into the EU. It was 5-6 per cent of our GDP.
Mentioning milk quotas, he said that there was an understanding in 1984 that if this issue came back around again that we would be treated favourably. The Commission's proposal didn't in any way help us in that regard.
The argument was still to be fought on Cohesion funding to make sure that 11 countries were not pushed out of the money. He hoped, finally, that we could achieve as much as possible, particularly on infrastructural issues.