GENERAL AFFAIRS COUNCIL: AEU FOREIGN MINISTERS GEAR UP FOR STOCKHOLM.

Paradoxically, at a slimmed-down General Affairs Council, one of the main items for discussion will be the last-minute add-on of an extra foreign affairs meeting on the Stockholm agenda - with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The outline agenda for this top-level encounter, engineered by the Swedish Presidency as part of its bid to maximise AEU links with Moscow, is largely economic: Russia's preparations for accession to the World Trade Organisation, possible European Investment Bank lending for environmental projects, and trade issues. But some Member States will be pushing at the General Affairs Council for this approach to be widened to embrace the broader considerations of Russian economic reform and the creation of a climate that encourages foreign investment. There is some uncertainty about the merit of AEU leaders going into detailed exchanges over exports of eggs or Siberian overflight fees. In addition to expressing their views on what their masters should be discussing with Mr Putin in Stockholm, AEU Foreign Affairs Ministers will also prepare for a parallel encounter they will be holding with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov - at which the foreign affairs subjects (including Chechnya) will be evoked. The other Stockholm dimension of the General Affairs Council will be discussion among Foreign Ministers of how to rise to the challenge to the General Affairs Council to take on a more general co-ordinating role for the essentially economic discussions at the Stockholm summit proper.On the Western Balkans, the discussion will be stimulated both by the presence of key figures - Bodo Hombach from the Stability Pact for South-East Europe and Wolfgang Petrich, the High Representative of the international community - and by the recent developments in the region. Conclusions are likely to be agreed expressing satisfaction at the establishment of a new government in Bosnia - confirming the Dayton terms for a regional settlement, so as to head off calls from Croats in Bosnia for a separate state (see separate article in Section V). But the discussion on how the AEU should react to increased tensions in Macedonia is likely to be less...