Compromise Eludes EU
June 19, 2007
It remained unclear after a meeting attended by the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland on Monday whether Warsaw would scale back its demands on EU voting rights at the bloc's summit later this week.
"I hope that we will achieve a compromise which should be arrived at easily and that we will not be forced to exercise our veto right," Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said during a joint news conference.
Invited to the mini-summit, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates expressed concern that the EU's 27-member summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday could fail.
All of EU requires breakthrough
"Europe needs a compromise," Socrates told reporters. "A failure would mean that all of us would lose."
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier agreed with Socrates, saying all EU members would lose out if they can't reach a deal at this week's summit.
"If there is no compromise, no agreement to be reached at the council later this week, everyone will have lost -- the European Union and each and every member country," he said.
Portugal, which takes over the EU rotating presidency on July 1, was invited to the Bratislava meeting, and Socrates indicated he would try to persuade euroskeptic countries like Poland to back a breakthrough deal on the EU's future functioning.
Continuing uncertainty?
Agreement on the sorely-needed reform package could end two years of political uncertainty sparked by the failure of the EU's constitution, which was rejected in French and Dutch referendums in 2005. Some observers have said if Poland vetoes the reforms that political uncertainty would continue.
Poland wants changes to the system of national voting powers at the heart of EU decision-making. The proposed voting system is skewed in favor of countries with large populations, like Germany, according to Polish President Kaczynski.
"It is not possible that the vote of a citizen in one country may have twice the weight of that from another country," he said. "This is very important for the future; we have to continue with this fight.
"Often, in the past, people have fought for things and only history has proved them right," he said, warning that EU countries should not be split into "good" and "bad" or "obedient" and "disobedient" members.
Half-hearted Czech support
The Czech Republic is backing Poland's stand and a Dutch proposal to boost national parliament's powers to supervise the EU's legislative proceedings.
Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said Warsaw had received signals of a possible compromise but told reporters: "I want to say explicitly that for Poland to accept the voting system in the European constitution is not a compromise."
Hungary and Slovakia support efforts led by Germany, the current EU president, to breathe new life into a proposed European constitution which has been on ice since it was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
"The Slovak government will not support changes which go against the agreements already concluded within the framework of the constitutional treaty," Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said. "The EU should stop being preoccupied with itself and turn as soon as possible to issues which are important for everyday society."
Extended talks possible
The Hungarian and Slovak parliaments ratified the now mothballed constitution, along with 16 other member states, while the Czech Republic and Poland indefinitely postponed discussion of the constitution.
Germany admitted it realized that despite narrowing differences on some issues, "it's also clear that there are still some very serious problems to solve," said government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm, who -- predicting a hot and drawn-out summit -- advised reporters to pack a third shirt as debate could last longer than the two-day summit originally scheduled.