The Convention on the Future of Europe and 'partnership'

Rev. Professor Peter Serracino Inglott, the Maltese government's representative at the ongoing Convention on the Future of Europe, says that those who say that 'partnership' does not exist and those who opine that 'partnership' exists are both right. In an interview with Joe Mercieca he explains the apparent contradiction and a number of ramifications.

Asked on the concept of partnership in the EU context in general and the Convention on the Future of Europe in particular, Professor Peter Serracino Inglott said that it is right to say that partnership, as a form of privileged relationship between a state and the EU, does not actually exist. But those who state that partnership is envisaged in the proposed Constitution of Europe being discussed at the Convention on the Future of Europe are also correct.

He explained that the draft Constitution has a note, although so far it hardly amounts to more than a short caveat, which says that the envisaged "privileged relationship between the EU and its neighbouring states" will only come into being "in the event of a decision on the creation of such a relationship". This implies that no such relation actually exists.

However the idea of bringing it into being has been mooted at the Convention. Having said that, one must add that its enactment is by no means certain, despite the support expressed for it by the EPP (European Peoples Party) and the Social Democrats, as well as by the President of the EU Commission Romano Prodi.

The provision in the preliminary draft constitutional treaty presented by the Convention's president, Valery Giscard D'Estaing, at the plenary session on October 28, 2002, is simply the following: "Title IX - the Union and Its Immediate Environment. Article 42: Privileged relations between the Union and neighbouring States". That is all Professor Serracino Inglott explained that the preliminary Draft Constitution is only a skeleton which gives just the subject matter which will then be fleshed out later.

Up to now only the first 16 articles of the proposed Constitution have been written out by the Presidium. These will be discussed at the next session of the Convention later this month.

The positioning of the proposed article following Title VIII - "Union Action in the World" is a clear indication that the inclusion of the article by the Presidium arose following the initial prompting which Professor Serracino Inglott himself gave the Convention in his intervention at the Plenary Session on July 11, 2002.

As MLP Deputy Leader Dr George Vella said in Parliament, Professor Serracino Inglott too had raised the subject with Giuliano Amato, vice-president of the Convention. The former Italian Socialist prime minister is also the main drafter of the Social Democrat proposed version of the European Constitution. On that occasion Dr Vella had remarked that Convention President Giscard d'Estaing had written to the MLP telling them that a proposal of this nature fell outside the terms of reference of the Convention. Mr Amato, however, said that he personally favoured the idea and would take it up upon himself to push it forward.

In the course of the discussion of Professor Serracino Inglott's July 11 intervention, other delegates pointed out that, besides the Mediterranean and sea-centred regions, there were other European countries such as the Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and others, which for reasons different from those raised by Fr Serracino Inglott with reference to the Southern Mediterranean, also deserved to be granted the possibility of a privileged relationship once they were excluded from the manifestly more satisfactory status of member states.

But what exactly is a privileged relationship, Professor Serracino Inglott was asked. He replied that from the remarks made both by Mr Prodi and Mr Amato, it seems that besides a free market, the privileged relationship would also involve a political element. In practice this would mean that the EU would provide assistance of a technical as well as financial nature to them (countries with privileged relationship) in order to help them develop their democratic institutions, especially those necessary for the full realisation of human rights.

According to Professor Serracino Inglott, it was actually Mr Prodi who introduced the term 'partners' into this particular discussion in a speech delivered at the Catholic University of Louvain last November. Before his intervention the talk had only been of a 'privileged relationship' meaning an added value to the usual association agreements. It appears that Prodi spoke in terms of 'partnership' because it has become part of the Eurojargon to use the term in the context of the EU's relationship with Third World countries.

The 'partnership' concept had been introduced in this context from the time of the Lomè convention of 2000, to suggest that there was some equality of status between the 15 EU members and the 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific states which signed the convention. Until then, no attempt had been made to conceal the one-sidedness of the Lomè convention, in the sense that it was Europe which was providing development aid to the other side without really receiving anything except good will in return.

Professor Serracino Inglott pointed out that the term partnership began to occur with increasing frequency in the language of international relations and later in international law in the 1990s. This occurred not coincidentally at the same time that the word 'globalisation' also became current in political discussion, following the end of the East-West division of the world.

In a European context, 'partnership' was first notably used to describe the agreement for co-operation between the European states which were members of NATO and those which were not, including Switzerland. This agreement is called "Partnership for Peace".

Then in November 1995 the term 'partnership' was used in the phrase: "Euro-Mediterranean Partnership" chosen to describe the Barcelona process. This is supposed to lead to the creation of a free market between Europe and the non-European Mediterranean countries, together with a political element consisting essentially of enhancing respect for human rights.

The term 'partnership' was then used in a sense which was already becoming more technical and specific in its legal implications when the EU established 'partnership' agreements first with the US and then with the Russian Federation. The partnership agreement with the US led mainly to the setting up of such 'enclaves' as the Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TAPD) in December 1999.

Since then many studies have appeared in international relations journals and aimed at giving 'partnership' a determinate meaning for juridical and political purposes. Perhaps the most authoritative of the theses and treatises on the subject was authored by Corinne Merini in 1994 and published in 1998 in Paris.

Professor Serracino Inglott said that Merini's conclusion is basically that partnership in international law, as distinct from, say, in tennis or business, refers to any institutionalised form of stable relationship between two or more states or political entities including: a) an acceptance of a minimum number of basic principles; b) a footing of some equality in some respect and c) the intention of engaging in a common activity.

But there have already emerged two very different kinds of international partnership agreements. Professor Serracino Inglott explained that the first is that between two really equal partners such as the EU and the US. The second type is that exemplified by both the Lomè and the Barcelona agreements between the EU and 'southern' countries basically receiving development aid. Incidentally, Professor Peter Serracino Inglott has himself been awarded the title of "Companion of the Commonwealth Partnership for Technology Management" (CPTM) because of his "contributions to the elucidation of the concept of "smart partnership" and also for coining the term 'intellectual equity' for the work contributed by CPTM networkers.

Asked about 'partnership' in the Maltese context Professor Serracino Inglott is of the view that the term is being bandied about in Malta without any attention to the increasingly precise meaning which it is receiving in international parlance.

It is clear that when Mr Prodi used it, it was to show that the privileged relationship of the EU with neighbouring countries was not anything like of the same value as membership but was rather the same type of relationship as the EU was establishing with African and other countries which could not aspire to the full benefits of European membership.

Likewise, added Professor Serracino Inglott, it is pertinent to note the amendment that William Abitbol, a French Member of the European Parliament, the alternate of Peter-Jens Bonde, submitted to the Convention. Bonde is familiar to the Maltese people because of his appearance on Xarabank as a spokesman for Eurosceptics. Mr Abitbol's amendment runs as follows: "The Union is open to all states of Europe. States whose territory and populations are only partly in Europe may be partners of the Union and the bordering state may be associated with it."

Professor Serracino Inglott said it was obvious that Mr Abitbol considers 'partnership' to be suitable just for only partly European states such as Turkey and the Russian Federation, and that all other states in the European neighbourhood can only aspire to associate status.

Everybody, including very explicitly Giuliano Amato, the leading light of the European Social Democrats at the European Convention, as well as Prodi and the EPP, never for one moment had thought it possible that any state which could become a member of the Union would prefer instead the manifestly inferior status of a partner. Professor Serracino Inglott added that of course all European leaders believe in the principle of self-determination and would be ready to meet the wishes, however self denying, of any state.