The forthcoming season of European Union negotiations was inaugurated over the weekend in Tralee by the informal meeting of foreign ministers. It was a useful session for all concerned. The relaxed and pleasant setting belied the importance of the mains issues at stake - the Iraqi aggression against one of the Kurdish factions and the US military response to it; the Middle East peace process; the future of the Bosnian peace process; EU trade relations with the US; European relations with Russia and Ukraine; and a progress report on the Inter Governmental Conference to revise the EU treaties.
By any account this is a heavy duty list, and, while this was an informal meeting, not intended to produce agreed texts, it has occasioned a degree of consensus, in spite of the well publicised failure to agree an attitude on the US retaliation against Iraqi targets. The objective to create a European Common Foreign and Security Policy is ambitious and requires for successful implementation a high level of agreement on policy, analysis and the definition of common interests.
On this showing it may not be as unattainable as is often assumed by sceptical commentators. The fact that the Tralee meeting considered such a range of international issues alongside the report on the IGC underlines the seriousness of the endeavour. Much progress has been made at these talks on agreeing common analysis and research facilities, and on how to pool resources for peacekeeping and humanitarian tasks.
It falls to the Irish EU Presidency to frame these talks in preparation for the informal Dublin summit of heads of state and government on October 5th and then for the Dublin Council on December 13th and 14th, which will draw the Irish presidency to a close. The task facing the Irish negotiators is to select from among the IGC issues subjects that can give an impetus to the negotiations next month without raising false expectations of premature breakthroughs that might deflect from the more important task of presenting a draft treaty to the summit in December. It is clear from the Tralee meeting that the French and Germans are especially keen to keep up the momentum of the talks.
Bosnia is a good example of the practical development of an EU foreign policy, as Mr Carl Bildt pointed out in Tralee. After much contention, differing perceptions and diverging interests among EU states during the four year civil war, there is now much more consensus. The ministers came close to agreement on how to manage the Bosnian peace process, through elections to implementing the power sharing arrangements and then to creating a security force that would take the place of IFOR in December. It seems clear that the EU will have an important continuing role there. The same applies to the Middle East peace process, which they want to strengthen. Their message to the United States on extra territorial legislation was strong, unambiguously opposing it, although action is unlikely to be taken before the US presidential elections.
After the August break the EU Presidency agenda is set to dominate and preoccupy much of the Government's work between now and December. The meeting in Tralee was an auspicious start to the work involved.