EUROPE: Summit to Focus Gaze Across the Atlantic

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Mar 12 2002 (IPS) - The heads of state and government of 28 European countries will discuss relations between Europe and the United States, as well as enlargement of the European Union (EU) and other internal matters, on Mar 15-16 in the northeastern Spanish city of Barcelona.

The protectionist tariff hikes and quotas on steel imports announced last week by U.S. President George W. Bush will be one of the issues focusing the attention of the European leaders, who will meet amidst huge protest demonstrations in the streets of Barcelona.

Attending the summit in the capital of the autonomous Spanish community of Catalonia will be the heads of state and government of the 15 EU member countries and of 13 countries applying for admission to the bloc, another key issue on the agenda.

While the leaders are meeting, three coalitions of social and political organisations will hold rallies and street protests in Barcelona, a city which has already taken on the look of a fortress due to the heavy security operation.

The most controversial issues on the agenda will be the liberalisation of the European energy market and the new hurdles against steel imports set in place by the United States. Development aid will also be debated, although the outlook for approval of a proposed increase is not strong.

On Monday, the EU foreign ministers and the bloc’s iron and steelworks associations and trade unions announced their backing for a lawsuit that the European Commission plans to file with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if the United States goes ahead with its plans for implementing new duties on steel imports on Mar 20.

Spain’s Foreign Minister Josep Piqué, the current president of the EU Council, expressed in the name of the bloc “support for the firm measure by the European Commission to respond to the unjustifiable” decision by the U.S. government.

The European Commission has begun to design safeguards to protect the bloc from a flood of steel from other countries which, when it finds itself unable to enter the U.S. market, will seek new markets in Europe and elsewhere, thus driving down prices.

Among the safeguards being discussed are import duties and quotas designed to prevent excess supply, said European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.

Brussels is also studying the question of compensation, which according to WTO regulations, the EU can demand from Washington due to export losses caused by the new tariffs announced by Bush.

Concern is growing in Europe that the United States might adopt new measures to protect its farmers and its semiconductor industry, because the weakness of the euro is undermining the bloc’s competitiveness, U.S. under-secretary of commerce for international trade Grant Aldonas told the Financial Times, a leading British daily.

In a preparatory meeting, Europe’s finance ministers proposed that companies be allowed to freely choose which power company they want as a supplier. France was successful in its bid to get households left out of the proposal.

Meanwhile, the rise in official development aid (ODA) proposed by the European Commission stands only a remote chance of being approved, since the governments have already indicated that they plan to keep public spending down, in an effort to control inflation.

The European Commission initiative is mainly focused on Spain and Italy, to get them to increase their ODA to 0.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – still far below the 0.7 percent proposed two decades ago by the United Nations.

In Europe, only Sweden and the Netherlands meet that target, earmarking 0.8 and 0.82 percent of GDP to ODA, respectively. Spain’s ODA amounts to 0.24 percent of GDP, while Italy and Greece’s shares are even lower than that.

The biggest civil society organisation planning demonstrations during the summit is the Social Forum of Barcelona, made up of all of the leftist parties represented in parliament, the main trade unions, and non-governmental organisations advocating a rise in development aid and involved in the fight against racism.

The Social Forum of Barcelona does not object to the current economic and social system, but would like to see it improved.

Another umbrella group, the Campaign Against the Europe of Capital, which groups around 100 NGOs and has called a demonstration for Saturday, advocates total, peaceful change.

The Catalonian Platform Against the Europe of Capital, which links four small, independent organisations, is also planning protests. The Platform has invited Batasuna, the political arm of the Basque separatist organisation ETA, to take part in its activities.

Former Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) Barcelona mayor Pasqual Maragall, a member of the Social Forum of Barcelona, said he was not opposed to the summit, but insisted that the social aspects of the European bloc must be reinforcd.

The Forum is organising a meeting Thursday of representatives of Europe’s trade unions and business associations with the current EU president, Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, and Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive organ.