Ivan Yates
Ceist:128 Mr. Yates asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs when the next EU Intergovernmental Conference will take place. [18181/99]
Written Answers. - EU Intergovernmental Conferences.
The European Council at Cologne in June confirmed its intention to convene an intergovernmental conference early in the year 2000. We understand that Portugal, which will hold the EU Presidency in the first half of next year, intends to launch the conference at the European Council in Lisbon on 23/24 March.
The Cologne European Council confirmed that the purpose of the intergovernmental conference would be to resolve the institutional issues left open in Amsterdam that need to be settled before enlargement. It stipulated accordingly that the conference would cover the following topics: size and composition of the Commission; weighting of votes in the Council – reweighting, introduction of a dual majority and threshold for qualified majority decision-making; and possible extension of qualified majority voting in the Council.
The Cologne conclusions added, however, that other necessary amendments to the treaties arising as regards the European institutions in connection with the above issues and in implementing the Treaty of Amsterdam could also be discussed. The precise scope of the conference remains to be determined, with some pressing for a more extensive agenda.
The Finnish Presidency was invited to draw up, on its own responsibility, for the European Council meeting in Helsinki in December this year, a comprehensive report explaining and taking stock of options for resolving the issues to be settled.
A preparatory process, involving a technical examination of the specific issues identified in the Cologne conclusions, is currently taking place at the level of permanent representatives in Brussels.
It has been agreed that the conference should be completed at the end of the year 2000, in other words at the end of the French Presidency.