WRITTEN QUESTION P-1025/00 by Piia-Noora Kauppi (PPE-DE) to the Council. Council's contradictory attitude to ending the boycott on Austria.
Date: 2000-03-28
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Austria, diplomatic relations, international sanctions, intra-EU relations

26.1.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 26 E/145

The case raised by the Honourable Member is indeed now before the Turkish courts. The Commission has
itself received a large number of letters about the case and has answered that it is taking the allegations
very seriously and will be asking the Turkish authorities for an explanation.

It is true that the foundation with which the five people referred to by the Honourable Member are
associated raises certain questions, given the anti-Semitic views expressed and published on its Internet site,
but if the reports of how they have been treated turn out to be correct, it is completely unacceptable.

(2001/C 26 E/180)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-1025/00

by Piia-Noora Kauppi (PPE-DE) to the Council

(28 March 2000)

Subject: Council(cid:146)s contradictory attitude to ending the boycott on Austria

At question time to the Council at the Strasbourg part-session, Mr Seixas de Costa, speaking on behalf of
the Council, replied to my question about the possibility of the Member States(cid:146) restoring diplomatic
relations with Austria. According to Mr Seixas da Costa it is quite possible for individual Member States,
irrespective of the attitude of the other Member States, to depart from the common position and to restore
diplomatic relations, and return to normal political cooperation with Austria.

Mr Antonio Guterres, speaking in Paris, replied to a question from the press on the same subject as
follows: (cid:145)We adopted a common position and only these fourteen countries can change it one day if there
(Bulletin Quotidien Europe No 7680,
are conditions of change in Austria justifying such a measure(cid:146)
Monday-Tuesday. 20-21 March 2000). According to Mr Guterres, then, a change to the common position
requires a joint decision by all 14 countries to end the boycott which began on 31 January 2000.

On the other hand Mr Guterres has also commented on the plans whereby Mr Sch(cid:252)ssel, the Chancellor of
Austria, would speak to the EU Member States(cid:146) leaders at a dinner held in connection with the Lisbon
summit. According to him Portugal plans that Mr Sch(cid:252)ssel should be given the opportunity to speak, but
that afterwards there would be no further discussion of the subject and Mr Guterres would himself reply to
Mr Sch(cid:252)ssel on behalf of all the EU states. This too suggests that Mr Guterres considers himself able to act
as spokesman on behalf of all the 14 Member States, even though representatives of Portugal had earlier
given us to understand that the sanctions could be ended on a bilateral basis.

I would therefore respectfully ask the Council how these contradictory statements should be interpreted. Is
the 14 Member States(cid:146) decision to freeze high-level relations with Austria bilateral in nature, a matter to be
agreed between each state and Austria individually, or is it something else, a (cid:145)Council-minus-one(cid:146) decision?
Are the Member States not entitled to take an independent decision on the boycott? Does the EU
determine not only the Member States(cid:146) internal government decisions but also their foreign policy relations
with one another and their right to make their own diplomatic contacts?

Reply

(8 June 2000)

The declaration to which the Honourable Member refers was issued by the Prime Minister of Portugal on
behalf of the governments of 14 Member States. It is not for the Council either to take a view on this
declaration, or to elaborate on it. The Council has not therefore taken a position on any of the issues
raised in the Honourable Member(cid:146)s question.