The Netherlands presents its programme for the EU Presidency to the EU foreign ministers
Government Information Unit
Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Press Release 220/2004
7 July 2004
European Union foreign ministers will be meeting in Brussels on 12-13 July for a General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting. Finland will be represented at the meeting by Erkki Tuomioja, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Paula Lehtomäki, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development.
The Netherlands, which began its new EU Presidency at the beginning of July, will be presenting the goals and areas of focus of the Dutch Presidency to the foreign ministers. The most important events during its six-month term will be the organization of the new European Parliament, the commencement of work by the new Commission and the signing of the new Constitutional Treaty.
Among the more important issues during the Dutch Presidency will be the discussions on the future financial framework and the decision that will have to be made in December on whether to begin EU membership negotiations with Turkey. Finland takes the view that the discussions on the future financial framework will have to make good progress during the Dutch Presidency if political agreement is to be reached on the financial arrangements in June 2005. As far as Turkey is concerned, Finland's stand on commencing membership negotiations will be defined after the Commission's appraisal has been published. The progress made by Turkey in fulfilling the Copenhagen political criteria and the Commission's views on commencing membership negotiations will both be taken into account when Finland's stand is being determined.
The intention is also to discuss continuation of the programme on justice and home affairs agreed at the Tampere European Council. Finland supports preparation of a Tampere II programme and believes that the new outlines should be as ambitious as those agreed in Tampere in 1999.
As far as external affairs are concerned, the Council will be dealing with the situation in the World Trade Organization negotiations on the basis of the Commission's review of the state of play. The discussions will focus particularly on the aim to agree on continuing the negotiations by the end of July. The main issues in the agreement on continuing the talks will be agriculture, the Singapore topics, access of industrial products to the markets and development issues. Agriculture has proved to be a particular stumbling block in the progress of the talks.
In order to expedite the talks, Commission members Pascal Lamy and Franz Fischler sent a letter to members of the WTO in May, indicating the EU's willingness to be flexible over export subsidies for agriculture on condition that all forms of competitive exports are dealt with equally strictly and that the agricultural package is acceptable to the EU in its entirety. Finland deems it important that agreement should be reached on continuing negotiations by the end of July. Finland also takes the view that throughout the spring, the EU has gone out of its way to be flexible and that reaching a conclusion now calls for a significant response from the other members of the WTO.
The foreign ministers will also discuss the situation in Iraq following the transfer of power at the end of June. The aim of the discussions is to frame concrete action for the EU in relation to Iraq. Such action will be based on the EU's Iraq Strategy which was approved at the June European Council. The key problem is the difficult security situation. The EU is keen to give its support to the new Interim Government, which is expected to be represented at the foreign ministers' conference.
The Council will also be discussing Darfur, the situation in Serbia following the presidential elections there and the Indonesian presidential elections held on 5 July.
Further information: Nina Hyvärinen, Senior Officer, tel. +358 9 1602 2150, Government Secretariat for EU Affairs, Prime Minister's Office and Päivi Nevala, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, tel. +358 9 1605 6145