Prime Minister Vanhanen at the non-governmental forum

In June 2007, the European Council reached agreement on the convening of an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) and on a detailed mandate for the reform of the existing EU Treaties.

The Intergovernmental Conference was officially opened in July 2007. The mandate was specific enough to enable most of the work to be carried out within a group of legal experts. The group has worked actively since the end of August and will continue to do so at least this week. The Portuguese Presidency aims to conclude the negotiations in conjunction with the Informal meeting of the EU Heads of State or Government scheduled to take place in Lisbon on 18-19 October. Finland supports the Presidency’s objective.

At the June European Council, the German Presidency managed to generate agreement on a very detailed mandate and the Treaty proposal is based on this mandate. The most important reforms of the Constitutional Treaty, as agreed at the 2004 IGC, will be achieved through the Reform Treaty. As from now, however, comparisons between the Reform Treaty and the Constitutional Treaty should be avoided. Instead, we should assess the improvements the new Treaty offers in relation to the Treaty of Nice.

From our point of view, important steps forward are the increased use of qualified majority decision making, the extension of the Community method in the field of Justice and Home Affairs, increased openness and the legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Reform Treaty enhances the Union's effectiveness and internal functioning. For the Union’s credibility, it is also important that the process be brought to a rapid conclusion.

It was also crucial for the Treaty reform process that the re-opening of the institutional package, as agreed in 2004, was mainly avoided. The finalisation of the current IGC in a few months’ time would have been extremely difficult had the package been re-opened as institutional issues always deal with the distribution of powers among the Member States. Therefore, one of our main objectives was to keep the institutional agreement unchanged.

The opening of new political issues should also be avoided at this late stage of the IGC negotiations.

In June, it was only agreed that the introduction of the Council’s new voting rules was postponed from 2009 to 2014. In addition, the Member States have a right to request that the current voting rules be applied till spring 2017. "Union Minister for Foreign Affairs" will be called High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

In the drafting of the IGC mandate last spring, Finland emphasised that the institutional reforms alone will not suffice. To guarantee the Union's effectiveness, its various policy areas must also be overhauled. It is important for us that the reforms regarding the extension of qualified majority decision making were kept intact. In a little while, Minister Thors will talk about these reforms in a greater detail.

If we manage to keep up with the schedule and the Treaty is adopted in October, it will be ready for signing in December. The Treaty will subsequently be put to Member States for ratification. So far, only Ireland has announced that it will hold a referendum on the issue. Other countries, including the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, have also considered the possibility of a referendum.

The goal is to have the Treaty take effect before the next elections to the European Parliament, to be held in June 2009.

Over the past decades, too much time has been spent on Treaty negotiations. For now, it is good to bring the reform to a conclusion and then direct all energies towards the attainment of results.

It is also very positive that the Reform Treaty did not delay any issues for later consideration. With this Treaty we can manage for several years. I find the occasionally voiced demands for a new IGC completely groundless. They would only direct discussion on the Union’s activities on the wrong tracks.

We must now focus on ways to implement the jointly set objectives and improve effectiveness in issues where citizens expect Union-level action. The main issues in this respect are the competitiveness goals of the Lisbon Strategy and climate and energy policy.

In climate policy, important discussions on the future of the Kyoto Protocol will take place over the next two years. The EU, as forerunner in climate policy issues, plays an important role in efforts to make states worldwide commit to greenhouse reductions and understand the imperative of curbing climate change.

Over the past year, awareness of climate change has increased tremendously and the international climate policy is experiencing a dynamic phase. Several countries, including China, Mexico and Japan, have prepared their own climate programmes. President Bush has also put forward a climate initiative for the world’s largest economies. Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel raised climate change as one of the main themes of the G8 meeting in June. This week, it is the main theme of the UN General Assembly in New York. In addition, we have the EU’s own ambitious targets set in March 2007. Political will seems to be emerging but we need much more of it. And this will must be accompanied by concrete actions. In this, the EU should play a leading role.

Ladies and gentlemen,

With the election of President Sarkozy, France has adopted an active role in the EU policy. It is only positive as the Union’s development is, every now and then, in need of new impetus. President Sarkozy has proposed the setting up of a group of wise men with a mandate of providing answers to questions regarding the kind of Europe we want to have in 2020-2030 and its future duties. I am in favour of such a group.

However, special consideration should be given to its mandate. It must be sufficiently wide-ranging. The group should identify the challenges we will face over the next twenty years and think about the Union’s functioning from the point of view of content. I would divide the challenges into three categories:

First, the group should think about how to safeguard European competitiveness in the face of intensifying global competition. Demographic trends do not favour Europe and this makes the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy even harder to attain. Maintaining competitiveness requires determined commitment and measures from both the Community and its Member States.

Second, the group should focus on ways the Union can enhance its effectiveness and influence on efforts to curb climate change, the environment and energy, internal market issues, immigration and the fight against terrorism. These are issues that have effect on the everyday life of the Union’s citizens and if we succeed in advancing them, it will, in the long run, reflect positively on the EU’s acceptability. We must not underestimate this viewpoint as it might result in a situation where the gap between the Union and its citizens becomes impossible to bridge.

Third, the group should examine ways of increasing the EU’s weight in international politics. This applies to international climate and trade negotiations, the settling of international conflicts, the prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and the alleviation of poverty. So far, the EU has not been able to exert its full influence on world politics although, over the recent years, the EU’s foreign and security policy has been the area of greatest development.

I have made proposals concerning the aforementioned issues to Portugal and France.

Over the past years, a lot of resources has been directed to the uniform implementation of the Union’s foreign and security policy and to solidarity among Member States. It is easy to belittle the Union’s activities in this sector but, for example, after the informal Lahti Summit solidarity among the Member States in foreign policy issues has maintained even when tested. We must remember that it was in Lahti where the Union spoke, for the first time, with one voice in the presence of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fortunately, the new Treaty will, with the introduction of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, bring coherence to the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the establishment of new external relations administration improve the effectiveness of the EU’s action.

However, I am of the opinion that the group of wise men should not aim at institutional reforms nor should its work overlap with the Union’s other broad-based projects, such as the preparation of financial perspectives or the ongoing enlargement process. The objectives and procedures for these projects have already been agreed upon.

The status of the group and its legitimacy in the eyes of the Union's citizens must also be taken into account. The composition of the group must be kept relatively small with particular emphasis on its representativeness. The appointment of active politicians or official representatives of institutions would not be appropriate.