Spain took over the EU presidency this week. Paddy Woodworthexamines Madrid's agenda and capabilities at a time of unprecedenteddevelopment
"Europe cannot stay inward-looking," the Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, said in November, opening the EU-Mexico Forum in Mexico City. "We have to make much greater efforts to engage with the rest of the world."
This was Aznar playing one his favourite roles - that of a European statesman building major international alliances. The presidency of the EU, which rotated to Madrid for six months on January 1st, offers Aznar his biggest opportunity to cast a long shadow on the world stage, and his biggest risk of a public stumble.
Either way, it will be Aznar, rather than his Foreign Minister, Josep Piqué, who makes the running. This centre-right Prime Minister is a presidential figure with a not inconsiderable ego. He was long regarded as gauche and uncharismatic at home, mocked for his Chaplinesque poses, unconsciously reminiscent of scenes from The Great Dictator.
But after nearly six years in power, boosted by a landslide re-election victory for his Partido Popular two years ago, no one mentions his slightly ridiculous moustache, though the opposition still says he suffers from authoritarian antics. Aznar has forged strong bonds with other EU leaders, especially with Tony Blair - hence the promise of a historic deal on Gibraltar. But he is his own man in Europe. He had no hesitations about propelling Spain into the euro, against odds which many economists thought insuperable. His centre-left predecessor, Felipe González, had also been a strong pro-European, though his closest ties were with Germany and France.
Entry into what was then the EEC was crucial to Spanish development after the transition from the Franco dictatorship to democracy in the late 1970s. Spain's acceptance into the Community in 1986 was widely seen as the definitive international certificate of democratic acceptability.
That experience should give Spain special skills in dealing with one of the great challenges facing the EU in this presidency: expansion to the east, accommodating 10 new members by 2004. Many of the incoming states are also former authoritarian regimes which need to consolidate their own democracies. Madrid, however, has serious economic problems with expansion, though it strongly supports it politically.
Spain has been one of the main beneficiaries of the EU's structural funds. Its regions, enjoying extensive powers of autonomous government, have developed rapidly thanks to subsidies from Brussels.
There is a widespread fear in the Spanish heartlands, where Aznar enjoys strong support, that EU expansion means local decline. Agricultural competition, too, will be especially sharp between Spain and newcomers Poland and the Czech Republic.
The impact of the new members on agricultural policy will be a key issue during the Spanish presidency.
Early in December, Aznar visited several eastern countries, including Poland, in an effort to assuage their fears that Spain might be less than generous in sharing the goodies from EU coffers. But while his tone was comforting, his message was mixed."Slovak regions below a certain level of income will get the funds they need," he said in Bratislava. But in Warsaw he pointed out tartly that "Spanish regions will not become any richer because of the fact that poorer countries enter the EU," arguing for maintaining subsidies to Madrid at current levels at least until 2006. His two positions do not quite add up, critics in the Spanish media and elsewhere have suggested.
There is no doubt, however, that Spain is more European than Ireland in the identity crisis sparked by expansion. Aznar has not hidden his displeasure at the Irish rejection of the Nice Treaty. The failure of the major parties to a Yes vote is not regarded sympathetically in Madrid. This is one of the factors dissuading Aznar's MEPs for voting for their natural ally, Pat Cox, as president of the European parliament.
Spain may be willing to sacrifice some of its own sectional interests during the presidency, as it did at the recent Laeken summit, when Aznar did not force the issue on Barcelona's impressive claim to house the proposed European Food Authority.
Such sacrifices are made because the Prime Minister is playing for higher stakes. He sees the presidency as a last opportunity to secure Madrid's place at the top table in Brussels, with Germany, France, Britain and Italy, before the club gets any bigger. Aznar recently slammed the door on political discussion within his own party on representation in Brussels for Spain's 17 autonomous governments. Many of his local leaders wanted to be able to discuss matters affecting their regional administrations directly with EU authorities. No, said Aznar abruptly, only the Spanish government can represent Spanish interests abroad.
He now wants to focus on the big picture, and to do this Spain's presidency must successfully navigate a formidable programme. As well as expansion, he will prioritise the war on terrorism, the launch of the euro, further economic liberalisation and an "effective" common foreign and security policy, he told the Spanish parliament recently. On September 11th, Aznar jostled Blair to be the first to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Bush administration in the international response to terrorism.
He had his own agenda here, since he has inherited the long conflict with the Basque separatists of ETA.
This group now qualifies as the last dangerous domestic terrorist organisation in the EU. Aznar strongly favours a purely "police" approach to the Basque question, and has lobbied successfully with his European colleagues to have ETA on the EU's new terrorist lists. He was less successful in persuading Brussels to include Batasuna, widely regarded as ETA's political wing. France was quick to remind Mr Aznar that the party not only remains legal in his own jurisdiction, but enjoys European parliamentary representation.
The Brussels correspondent for the Wall Street Journal probably reflected the view from Washington when he wrote: "After several anodyne EU presidencies, José María Aznar offers one of the best opportunities Europe has had for years to begin to fulfil its potential, politically as much as economically."
Paddy Woodworth is an Irish Times journalist and author of Dirty War, Clean Hands - ETA, the GAL and Spanish Democracy, published last year by Cork University Press