WRITTEN QUESTION P-1025/00 by Piia-Noora Kauppi (PPE-DE) to the Council. Council's contradictory attitude to ending the boycott on Austria.
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: Councilís 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 Statesí 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: 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 measureí 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 Schüssel, the Chancellor of Austria, would speak to the EU Member Statesí leaders at a dinner held in connection with the Lisbon summit. According to him Portugal plans that Mr Schüssel 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 Schüssel 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 Statesí 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 Council-minus-oneí decision? Are the Member States not entitled to take an independent decision on the boycott? Does the EU determine not only the Member Statesí 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 Memberís question