EU summit: Terror pledge, and clashes

Belgian Premier Guy Verhofstadt is hosting the Laeken summit; his country holds the EU rotating presidency

By CNN European Political Editor Robin Oakley

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- When European Union leaders meet for a summit in the Brussels suburb of Laeken this weekend, they will renew their pledges to cooperate in fighting terror.

But they seem certain to clash over just how closely they should work together on other issues in the future.

With the world's focus still on the September 11 terror outrages and the aftermath in Afghanistan, it may be an unwise moment for more constitutional navel-gazing in Europe.

But the leaders long ago agreed to use the Laeken summit to mandate a special convention that will seek to settle key questions about the EU's future next year.

First, under German pressure, the convention will attempt to produce a charter setting out the respective "competences" of EU institutions and its 15 member nations.

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It will prescribe which responsibilities should remain the preserve of national governments and which should be exercised collectively by the European Commission and other EU bodies.

Second, the convention has to determine the precise legal status of the EU's charter of rights, agreed at the Nice summit in December 2000.

The UK insisted on this being a summary of existing rights, not something enshrined and actionable in EU law. Others want the charter redefined.

Third, the convention will attempt to decide the role national parliaments should play in the EU constitution.

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, has suggested creating a second tier of the EU Parliament composed of national MPs, to help make the EU's institutions seem more relevant.

Others say this would simply add to confusion about the EU's workings.

And fourth, the convention will begin simplifying the vast range of EU treaties, seeking to scrap as many sections as they can and simplify the wording of the rest.

'Treaty fatigue'

A clash is inevitable because Guy Verhofstadt, Belgium's prime minister and summit host, has put forward an integrationist program for the new convention -- a stance opposed by Scandinavian countries and the UK.

Those nations want to see EU institutions do less, but do it better -- while Verhofstadt, for example, would like the European Commission to take charge of foreign and security policy and have Europe-wide political parties.

The mood of those outside the summit was perhaps best summed up by Nick Clegg, a Liberal Democrat member of the European Parliament from Britain.

Clegg has warned EU leaders of their seeming "institutional restlessness," saying a "treaty fatigue" is setting in among Europe's peoples.

The Belgians, like some other small countries, have long been known for pushing an integrationist agenda.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, whose country will take over the rotating six-month EU presidency on January 1, has indicated his eagerness to get the EU back to economic practicalities.

He has promised to make a priority of tackling terrorism, and concentrating on improving transport infrastructure, liberalising energy markets, facilitating the movement of labour and strengthening education and training across Europe.

Pre-summit rows

There have been some efforts to avoid rows at this EU summit. Just last weekend, Italy had blocked plans for an EU-wide arrest warrant covering 32 offences. The warrant was designed to make it easier to tackle terrorists.

After the rest of the EU reacted in fury -- with some suggesting Italy was opposed because its premier, Silvio Berlusconi, could face charges in Spain over his finance companies' operations -- Berlusconi climbed down midweek saying there had been a "misunderstanding."

Greek authorities, who provoked British outrage by holding a group of amateur UK and Dutch "plane-spotters" in jail for weeks, also relented just ahead of the summit and released them.

But the Greeks could still figure in another summit row, over the EU's planned Rapid Reaction Force and its relationship to NATO.

For more than a year, Turkey -- a NATO member and EU applicant -- has held up the plans over how much say it should have over any EU use of NATO assets.

Now that Turkey's objections have apparently been resolved to the satisfaction of all the other parties, Greece -- which has differences with Turkey over Cyprus and the Aegean Sea -- announced this week that it was not happy with the proposals.

Greece's move effectively blocks a deal that EU leaders had hoped to formalise at the summit with letters between them and NATO setting out arrangements for cooperation.