THE Netherlands believes that when it takes over the rotating presidency next month, it will inherit a Union launched ever more firmly on the road to fuller economic and political integration.
Both Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok and Foreign Minister Hans Van Mierlo struck an upbeat note when analysing the outcome of the Dublin summit, acknowledging the importance of the "staability pact" agreement while predicting that a "substantial" treaty will be signed in Amsterdam in six months time:
"The stability pact decision was a very positive one. I'm glad that it was possible to find this solution. If not, we would really have been in trouble, but, of course, ven with this agreement we still have a lot of problems to solve, such as who is going to be a member of the first team of EMU," Mr Kok said.
"We know that EMU is a necessary logical follow-up to the internal market while monetary and economic co-operation is necessary to develop further political integration he added.
In taking over the European baton, of course, The Netherlands faces an imposing task, namely that of converting Dublin's draft text Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) document into a new treaty, ready to be signed in Amsterdam.
Despite the wide-ranging variety of potentially controversial `issues (single vote veto, enlargement, the role of the European Parliament etc) touched on by the IGC negotiations, Prime Minister Kok is optimistic that Amsterdam will deliver the treaty goods.
"We have the IGC in front of us and it would be naive to think that after this weekend's decisions all `obstacles have been removed," he said. "However, some obstacles `have been removed and we now have fresh air to breath in and in which to shape the future for the people of Europe."
Foreign Minister Van Mierlo is equally optimistic about an Amsterdam treaty, arguing that the Dublin summit has underlined the commitment of all European member countries towards producing a treaty next June, adding: "Fortunately for us, all the other countries want a substantial treaty and they want to finish it under the Dutch presidency, and all of them, even if in varying degrees, want a substantial result."
The Dutch Foreign Minister surprised no one when highlighting Yugoslavia and the Middle East as foreign policy priorities for the next six months, but he was also keen to highlight the so-called Barcelona process re Mediterranean countries:
"We have to chair the Barcelona process meeting, which concerns relations between Europe and the Mediterranean, and for The Netherlands it is very important to show that there is no division of roles by which southern European countries are only interested in the non-EU Mediterranean countries while the northern EU members are interested only in East European countries. Because we see the Mediterranean aspect of Europe as [being as] important as Eastern Europe..."
Asked about possible controversy provoked by Holland's lax drugs-related legislation, the Dutch Foreign Minister strongly defended his country's policies, adding: "Our policy on drugs has achieved much better results than that of the surrounding countries ... So what we must do is convince the others that, while we intend to stick to the essentials of our policy, it doesn't mean that we don't want to co-operate in all fields to find joint methods to fight drug trafficking and the abuse of drugs.
Finally, as The Netherlands prepares to take over the presidency from Ireland, the Dutch Prime Minister was keen to pay tribute to the Irish handling of its semester, saying: "I hope there will be parallels between the way Ireland has handled the presidency and the way Holland will handle it, because the Irish did a wonderful job. They did a very efficient job in preparing the ground for the IGC draft text ... I would be happy if in half a year from now the comments on the Dutch presidency would be similar to what people are now saying about Ireland."