EU Trouble Makers

As representatives from the 27 EU members states converged on the Portuguese capital on Thursday, Oct. 18, for crunch talks to approve a new treaty, the leaders of Poland, Italy and Britain came armed with issues that could torpedo the charter at the eleventh hour.

In Poland, where a closely-contested parliamentary election is to take place on Sunday, nationalists who support the government want their country to be granted more power to delay EU decisions that it dislikes.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski is thus insisting that the so-called "Ioannina compromise" -- a gentlemen's agreement that allows EU members that cannot muster a blocking minority to delay a decision while attempts to find a satisfactory solution are made -- to be made legally binding.

Polish president reiterates treaty delay threat

Before leaving for Lisbon, the president reiterated his threat to delay the charter.

"We don't want anything more than is our right," President Lech Kaczynski told Polish radio before leaving for the summit. Asked what would happen if Polish demands were not met, Kaczynski replied: "We will have to delay the discussion".

Any delay would be a huge blow for the treaty and the EU which has been plagued by in-fighting over the text of this charter and its predecessor, the doomed EU constitution which was derailed by referendums in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

With summits with Russia and China on the horizon, the EU would face a crisis of credibility and confidence if it was to meet these powers without an agreement on the treaty behind it.

Britain's Brown under domestic pressure

Eurosceptic Britain could also throw a spanner in the works if the legal work which has been done on the draft treaty since an initial agreement in Berlin in June changes or removes any of the "red lines" -- areas of national sovereignty where Britain would hold a veto -- which the UK had asked to be included.

With public opinion showing huge opposition to any increased EU influence over British domestic politics, Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be under pressure to ensure that Britain's toes are not trodden on. If he feels that the UK is getting a raw deal, Brown may delay the treaty to get what he -- and the people who will decide his fate at the next general election -- wants.

Prodi smarting from parliament decision

Meanwhile, Italy is still smarting from last week's announcement that the reduction of seats in the European Parliament will mean fewer Italian representatives, a decision Prime Minister Romano Prodi said he was not ready to accept.

While the issue is not directly linked to the treaty, the subject may be included in the agenda for the summit and Prodi hinted that he may make it a treaty problem unless Italy's demands on the composition of the future European Parliament are met.

"We cannot accept a solution... based on the number of residents rather than citizens because that does not agree with either the spirit or the letter of the new treaty," Prodi said.

The European Parliament has adopted a new plan for allocating seats starting with the next legislature (2009-14) under which for the first time Italy would have less MEPs (72) than either France (74) or Britain (73).

Italy has so far refused the plan. Rome argues that it is not the total population resident in each country that should form the basis of the calculation, but rather the number of European citizens.

Observers suspect that the unusually tough line taken by Prodi, a former EU Commission head, has a lot to do with the difficulties his fragile centre-left coalition is facing back home.

Notwithstanding the many obstacles, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates whose country currently heads the EU's six-month rotating presidency said he's optimistic of reaching a deal.

"I think we are getting very, very close to a new treaty and
this will be called the Lisbon Treaty," Socrates told reporters ahead of chairing the summit.