By Nicola Smith - 17th May 2004
Austria will firmly support an Irish compromise over tax, criminal justice and social policy in the draft EU constitution, its foreign minister said on Tuesday.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner praised a Dublin plan for an “emergency brake” procedure which would allow one member state to call for a unanimous vote on tax, criminal justice and social policy when sensitive national interests were at stake.
These areas would in principle be decided by a qualified majority of national capitals if nobody felt the need to pull the emergency cord.
“We feel that the [Irish] presidency compromise is a good one. It finds the possibility between unanimity on the one hand and qualified majority voting on the other hand,” Ferrero-Waldner told reporters.
Others are speaking of enhanced cooperation, so the presidency must put another compromise on the table, she added. “There will be no easy solution.”
The current concessions are an attempt to overcome the UK’s reluctance to back down over its so-called ‘red line’ issues.
London has made clear that it will stick to its guns in insisting on unanimous votes for foreign policy, tax, social policy and criminal justice matters.
But Austria has indicated it will not give up its own ‘red line’ over the composition of the European Commission.
Ferrero-Waldner confirmed there had been little progress on Irish compromises to limit the future number of EU commissioners.
Confirming Austria’s insistence on keeping its own seat on the EU executive, she said, “many countries have always said the principle of one commissioner per country is an absolute necessity.”
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