Division Highlights EU Summit

Spain is hosting the last European Union summit of it’s six-month presidential tenure in Seville this weekend, and it doesn’t promise to be pleasant.

Two car bombs, planted by the Basque terrorist group ETA, exploded in the coastal cities of Marbella and Fuengirola in the hours before the summit started on Friday afternoon. The terrorist attacks in two tourist resorts severely injured a British man and five others, including children.

The detonations sent shock waves through those gathered for the EU summit, who are meeting for two days to wrestle with some highly controversial issues.

Immigration

At the top of the agenda and occupying editorial pages across Europe the past week is immigration. Namely, the fight against the boatloads of illegal immigrants that wash up on Italian, Spanish and British shores annually and the stream of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers smuggled in by professional rings.

Though the actual numbers of asylum seekers has gone down in recent years, EU leaders felt they needed to address the topic to wrest control of the political debate over the issue away from far-right populists. Tighter borders, more cooperation between law enforcement of the member states and sharing visa information are the least controversial and, therefore, most likely results of the two-day discussions. A proposal to financially punish an illegal immigrant’s country of origin for not doing more to stop his flight has split the EU. Sweden and France are dead against the idea. Great Britain, Italy and Germany support it.

Enlargement

With immigration already on the agenda, the EU's eastward expansion could prove too spicy a topic for this summit. All EU member countries welcome enlargement, which could bring as many as 10 new members into the fold in 2004. But, as with many EU plans, the devil is in the details. Agricultural subsidies for the new member states has divided EU members like France and Germany.

Germany is demanding that new member states, like Poland, do more to reform their farming industry. Berlin also wants to cut the amount of agricultural subsidies Brussels doles out each year. France, heavily reliant on such subsidies, is firmly against the idea. French President Jacques Chirac enjoys the support of the country’s powerful farm lobby. But Spain just wants the topic to go away. After this summit, it hands over the six-month presidency of the EU to Denmark.

Reforming the EU

Again, a power play between Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy. The UK and France favor putting power in the already-established EU Council of Ministers, where a minister from each nation represents his country’s interests. Germany and the union’s smaller countries favor keeping power in the European Commission, the union’s policy-initiating body. The preference is in line with Germany’s desire to shape the union into more of a federation.