EU: The story of Tampere - an undemocratic process excluding civil society
01 September 1999
"Tampere" was a very strange "Summit". It was a summit of EU "spin" (for non-UK readers this means putting the most positive gloss on everything). It was a summit like no other (except the extraordinary summit in Luxembourg on employment, 20.11.97) where no preparatory reports were available, only the final summit conclusions. This special report traces what was available and who decided what.
In the weeks running up to the summit NGOs and voluntary groups said that Tampere should be about "freedom" and "justice" and not just "security" ("Tampere European Council: An "Area of freedom, security and justice" or an "obsession with security"?", Statewatch, May-August, 1999) and this was a theme embraced by EU leaders up to and at Tampere. The other main criticism, that no preparatory reports were available to civil society, was never addressed. However, in the latter mode the Tampere Conclusions says:
"The area of freedom, security and justice should be based on the principles of transparency and democratic control. We must develop an open dialogue with civil society on the aims and principles of this main area in order to..." (para 7)
It might be thought this paragraph would conclude with something like: "allow civil society to play its full part in the decision-making process." But no, it ends:
"[in order to] strengthen citizens' acceptance and support."
And here is the nub. The intention is not to enable citizens and civil society to participate but rather to "spin" policies in such a way that passive citizens "accept" and "support" what is being done in their name.
The Tampere process - background
The Amsterdam Treaty in Title VI of the TEU and Title IV of the TEC set new objectives for justice and home affairs in the EU covering policing, customs, legal cooperation, visas, immigration and asylum. This was followed up by the "Action Plan establishing an area of freedom, security and justice", a detailed programme for the Council and Commission adopted at the December 1998 regular European Council in Vienna (some Council documents refer to this as the "Vienna Plan"). The Action Plan contains 51 specific objectives with target dates of two and five years.
The idea of a special European Council on justice and home affairs was put forward by Spain (following a suggestion by Jacques Santer) at an informal European Council at Portschach, Austria on 24-25 October 1998. The proposal was formally adopted at the Vienna Summit at the end of the Austrian Presidency of the EU. The intention was to put "justice and home affairs" at the centre of the EU agenda in the same way that previously the original customs union, then the internal market, and more recently the common currency ("euro") had been.
The December 1998 Justice and Home Affairs Council (JHA) spoke of the Tampere meeting considering three major items: 1) a strategy paper on migration and asylum; 2) the Action Plan/Vienna Plan; and 3) the High Level Group report and action plans on six target migration "producing" countries. In the event these three major reports were not discussed as such at Tampere, rather the Tampere Conclusions assumed these three reports had already been agreed - which they had.
So what was to be on the Tampere agenda, what was its purpose?
By June there was no concrete agenda, and no preparatory reports, in the public domain. On 18 March the German and Finnish Presidencies had written jointly to all EU governments and then carried out the first of two "tours of capitals" in April and May (the second started at the end of September). This established agreement on the three themes to be discussed: a) asylum and immigration; b) the fight against cross-border crime; c) the establishment of a "European judicial area".
At the end of July the UK House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities produced a report on "Prospects for the Tampere Special European Council" (HL 101, 27.7.99). This includes a useful b