WRITTEN QUESTION E-0298/98 by Leonie van Bladel (UPE) to the Council (17 February 1998)

Subject: Obstinate attitude of a Netherlands Junior Minister with regard to the solution to a conflict with Russian partners

1. Is the Council aware that a summons has been taken out by the Russian Tonar Corporation, a semi-public enterprise, before The Hague Crown Court against the State of the Netherlands and the Dutch multinational, Koninklijke Ahold NV?

2. Does not the Council feel that the totally unsuccessful TACIS project, undertaken by the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Koninklijke Ahold NV and subsidized by EU funds, should have been solved in a manner more elegant than one involving the courts, as the Netherlands Junior Minister for Economic Affairs is proposing?

3. Can the Council accept the notion that Russian confidence in the operation of the free market and, indirectly, the security and stability which Europe is endeavouring to secure, are being undermined in particular by the obstinate manner in which the Netherlands Junior Minister for Economic Affairs is refusing to bring the parties together round a table, as proposed by the Dutch MPs Van Walsem, Leers and De Koning, in order to seek a solution, all the more so since Ahold's conduct, like the conduct of the Netherlands Ministry for Economic Affairs, is destroying the average Russian's confidence in initiatives from Western Europe, also in the light of the previous ruling of the Amsterdam Court which, in an earlier judgment, ruled Koninklijke Ahold NV's conduct unlawful?

4. On the basis of the foregoing, is the Council prepared to support the proposal that talks between the parties be organized with a view to restoring the average Russian's confidence in initiatives from Western Europe by making an urgent appeal to the Netherlands Junior Minister for Economic Affairs to abandon her obstinate attitude?

Joint answer to Written Questions E-3886/97, E-4158/97 and E-0298/98 (7 April 1998)

The TACIS programme provides technical assistance for economic reforms in Russia and, through the transfer of 'know-how', measures which will, inter alia, ensure the transition to a market economy.

With the collapse of the USSR, the provision of food supplies to Russia's cities posed major problems, warranting a large-scale Community food aid operation. Structural requirements linked to transition to a market economy in this area led the Community to make the production, processing and distribution of foodstuffs one of the priorities for TACIS Programme intervention.

In this context, the TACIS Programme funded a preliminary study for a centre for the wholesale distribution of foodstuffs in Moscow. That study was followed up by intervention funded through bilateral technical assistance from the Netherlands Government.

In this connection, the Council would make the general point that the Commission is responsible, under successive Regulations Nos 2157/91, 2053/93 and 1279/96, for managing the TACIS Programme and it is therefore for the Commission to provide information on the implementation of the operations it finances. With more specific reference to the project financed by the Netherlands State from its own funds, the Council does not feel it should comment when a Russian company has brought the case before the courts of the Member State concerned.