For many of Britain’s Tory MEPs June 11 2009 is a date which rushes upon them all too fast: it’s when Britain votes in the next European elections.  So where will the Conservative Party stand on Europe? Will the Conservative group in the European Parliament be forced out of the EPP and into a strange alliance with some Czech MEPs? And will Tory leader David Cameron make “renegotiation” an election pledge, assuming that by then the Lisbon Treaty will have been ratified and implemented?

MEP Caroline Jackson has decided to go public with her concerns in the Financial Times, in the hope of triggering a more thoughtful debate in her party. She warns of “a very nasty patch of poisonous fungus” among the green leaves of the party’s symbolic tree. She wants David Cameron to have the courage to admit he was wrong and to take Europe seriously.

The Conservative leader is certainly a pragmatist, working to find traction in the slippery middle ground of British politics. See Nick Robinson’s blog profile which asks just ‘What does Cameron think?’.

Cameron’s attitude to Europe seems to be among his more cynical ploys, designed to keep at bay the challenge from the UK Independence Party, to provide some red meat for the right wing of his own party yet to send a message to the British electorate that Europe is of no significance. He barely recognises the existence of the Conservative EP group and runs the risk that some MEPs will leave the party altogether and make common cause with the Lib Dems.

The big prize for Cameron would of course be victory in the British general election, which could also be in 2009 (how about June 11 2009?). It will take a landslide to give the Conservatives an overall majority and the Lib Dems could well be the king makers in a hung parliament at Westminster. They also have the chance to mount a big challenge in the European elections.
 
The open question is whether Cameron will change his strategy as elections come closer and the prospect of government becomes reality. These are indeed tense times for the pro-European MEPs in the Tory group.

So Kosovo has effectively become a protectorate of the European Union. This is surely a watershed in the history of the EU and a major test of whether it can make a reality of the European Security and Defence Policy.
  
A decision by the Council of Ministers, published the day before the province’s February 17 declaration of independence, was to establish a Rule of Law Mission consisting of more than 1,800 police, judicial and customs officials who will move into Kosovo over the coming months to join the 16,000 NATO troops which are already there.
 
No beating about the bush: their task will be to create a new country.
 
It’s a daunting prospect, for both political and economic reasons, but of course you can’t separate the two. Kosovo is landlocked, dependent on its neighbours for transport, energy and communications and in the end looking to an effective EU operation to develop into a viable European state.
 
In the years since 1999, when NATO forced Serbia to relinquish control of the province following Milosevic’s catastrophic attack on Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians and the loss of more than 10,000 lives, the Union has exerted increasing influence, working closely with Kosovo’s elected leaders and endorsing the conclusions of the UN Special  Envoy Martti Ahtisaari who proposed supervised independence.
 
Although Russia vetoed the Ahtisaari plan in the Security Council, most EU countries regarded independence as inevitable. Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the United States have now recognised the new country. Russia, Spain, Greece and Slovakia, among others, have refused. It seems as if rather more than half of EU countries will give recognition.
 
What I find fascinating is the way in which all 27 member states have approved the Rule of Law Mission despite the deep reservations about independence expressed by some like Spain and Greece.  The Council of Ministers’ communiqué of February 17 stressed that Kosovo constituted a sui generis case which did not call into question” the principles of the UN Charter such as sovereignty and territorial integrity”, although the Serbs and Russians would argue the exact opposite.

The description of Kosovo as Land of the Living Past could not be more apt. Most Serbians still regard Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia and the monastery of Kosovo, site of the defeat by the Ottomans in 1389, as their holiest place, but it is worth remembering that it was only in 1912 that Serbia reoccupied the province and encouraged Serbians to settle there. Like so much of the Balkans, this is ever-shifting territory.

The challenge for the EU remains highly complex, but so far it seems to be well managed.  Belgrade has been encouraged on the path to EU membership, a policy which was rewarded by the electoral success of the pro-EU Boris Tadic in Serbia’s recent presidential elections. Tadic is committed to a diplomatic approach. He demands a United Nations resolution denouncing the declaration of Kosovo independence, but has made it clear that his absolute priority is progress towards EU membership and although the Serbian ambassador to Washington was recalled following the Kosovo declaration, the mission to Brussels was apparently not affected.
 
Building a peaceful and economically viable Kosovo over the coming years is the greatest test yet for the EU’s combination of  “soft power” and political will, we hope the final step in stabilising a most unstable region.  It is evident that the European Union provides the only framework with a chance of achieving a peaceful outcome.

Never underestimate the intensity of the battles which can rage inside the European Commission as different policy interests and personalities clash over new EU proposals. There was no doubt some bitter argument and tough bargaining in the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters when January’s climate change package was being threshed out.

And quite right too, because rarely has the Commission faced so difficult a policy challenge, with such far-reaching implications for Europe’s future.

Just think of the Commission portfolios involved. You can imagine the tensions between Verheugen, worried about global competition and Dimas defending the Bali commitments, between Pielbalgs, Dimas and Fischer-Boel over biofuels, with Kroes concerned about state aid, Mandelson fighting off the threat to penalise imports from countries refusing to act on climate change and Potočnik pushing for a strong research component.

President Barroso seems to have managed the storm effectively, no doubt with strong support from Catherine Day, Commission Secretary General and key co-ordinator of Commission policy.

Barroso presented the Commission’s proposals to the European Parliament on January 23. The MEPs’ response seems to have been rather muted, although as Mark Mardell reported in his blog, the UK Independence Party member Graham Booth poured cold water on the whole idea of global warming and spoke of the inevitable ice age to come. I guess he sees the whole thing as a conspiracy to hoodwink the gullible – just as he does the EU itself.

Subject to Council and Parliament approval, the Commission proposals will shape the direction of the European economy and the conditions of modern living in Europe out to 2020 and beyond. And let’s bear in mind the long-term aim: for Europe to lead the way to a halving of the world’s CO2 emissions by 2050 in order to combat global warming.

You can see the compromises in the final package: 20 per cent cut instead of 30 per cent unless there is a global agreement, which the green groups see as a climb-down;  emphasis on sustainability for biofuels, outlawing the use of land with “high biodiversity value” such as natural forest;  a commitment to respect WTO rules, which Barroso included in his Parliament speech, so providing “clarification” of his more threatening remarks about imports the previous week; and special provisions for industries forced to relocate outside Europe (“carbon leakage”) because of competition from countries which do not constrain emissions. Steel and aluminium spring to mind.

Most EU countries seem to accept the broad outlines of the package, which do after all reflect commitments made last March by Europe’s leaders. Sweden and Denmark complain that all the progress they’ve achieved up to now has been quite ignored in the share-out of emissions cuts.

Perhaps the most significant feature of the whole package is its timescale. Can you imagine an individual European government setting a comprehensive climate change programme for the next twelve years, in the face of all the domestic pressures which can derail policy? Action at a European level sets the policy at one remove from domestic political demands and so takes the pressure off national politicians.

Technological development will be a key factor in what can be achieved within this timescale and it will be intriguing to see how different national policies evolve, because the spin-off benefits for jobs and economic growth should be considerable.

I see that Germany, for instance, is using the feed-in tariff to stimulate renewables and is being rewarded by a remarkable expansion in solar panel production in former East Germany. The firms which have clustered around Frankfurt (Oder) are confident that the costs of solar power will be dramatically reduced in the coming years, so making it an increasingly viable alternative energy source. The impact on local employment is already impressive.

The Commission’s climate change proposals give the Slovenian presidency a good routine policy issue to get its teeth into. Infinitely more difficult for them to handle is the future of Kosovo. Washington is reported to be putting pressure on Slovenia to accelerate EU recognition of an independent Kosovo, while the Kosovar leadership talks of declaring independence “within days”, which was taken to mean after the February 3 Serbian Presidency election run-off between incumbent Tadic and the more pro-Russian Nikolic. The election was narrowly won by the moderate Tadic by a margin of 50.5 per cent, increasing chances of Serbia’s further involvment with the EU, although the recent decision to send an EU mission to Kosovo remains a serious issue for Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica’s Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) . Intense diplomatic activity will continue with Commissioner Olli Rehn struggling to keep the EU show on the road.

Another election in the region holds a special interest: the February 17 Greek Cypriot presidential. The independent International Crisis Group believes that 2008 will offer a final window of opportunity to prevent complete partition of the island and the end of any hopes for a negotiated solution. The last attempt at unification was thwarted by the Greek Cypriots before EU entry.

Let’s hope that there is sufficient political will to settle the issue at last, so removing this poisoned thorn from Europe’s side. I do wonder what would have happened if the British (ex-colonial power with a sovereign base on the island) had intervened in 1974 when the Greek junta triggered a coup against President Makarios and gave Turkey a justification for invasion.

The Slovenian presidency is hoping to see more national ratifications of the Lisbon Treaty during its six-month term. Hungary is there first and you can track the progress on this map.

Portugal has decided not to go for a referendum, while in the UK the parliamentary process has begun. Nick Clegg, the new leader of the 62 Liberal Democrat MPs, has made clear that his party will not vote in favour of a referendum, which makes it most unlikely that the Treaty will be put to the electorate in the UK. This leaves Ireland as the only EU country to hold a referendum and, whilst confidence remains high, there is the risk of a repeat performance of the 2001 Nice treaty campaign, which was quashed by a conservative populist alliance.  

I see that the European Parliament wants more visibility for all the decisions adopted in advance of the end-game of conciliation. Apparently 64 per cent of co-decision dossiers are agreed with the Council in first reading and many more in early second reading, so Dagmar Roth Behrendt’s working party is proposing signing ceremonies and press releases to mark these approvals. Some may say the Parliament wants more profile before the 2009 elections – and why not?