The 19th COSAC took place in Vienna on 23-24 November 1998. On 10 November 1998 negotiations on joining the EU had formally been opened with the first six applicant states. So when the Austrian Foreign Minister, Mr Wolfgang Schüssel, addressed the conference, he concentrated his introductory statement on the enlargement negotiations. The Austrian Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Klima, opened a debate on employment; and the Spanish EU Commissioner, Mr Marcelino Oreja, gave an introduction to a debate on institutional reform, with a particular emphasis on transparency.
The XIX COSAC also returned to the question of how to implement the Amsterdam Protocol and reform COSAC’s working methods. The Austrian COSAC Presidency asked delegations to consider the discussion as a sort of “first reading”, focusing on identifying the questions to be addressed. The debate focused on a wide range of issues, including the voting arrangements of COSAC, the possibility of organising extraordinary meetings, the language regime, and establishing a secretariat. A proposal was made to establish a working group composed of the Presidential Troika and the European Parliament in order to examine these questions in detail. However, it was decided to leave the final decision on this matter to the following COSAC in Berlin.
The XIX COSAC ended with a novelty, a declaration of solidarity to Italy, which had refused to extradite the Kurdish leader imprisoned in Italy: “The XIXth COSAC [...] expresses its solidarity with Italy, which has faced the Öcalan affair in full compliance with the principles of Italian and European legislation.”