EU leaders bicker over constitution: Summit opens in Rome
By Shadaba Islam
ROME, Oct 4: European Union leaders on Saturday kick-started ambitious talks on a new treaty for an expanded Union but remained divided on key constitutional changes.
Striving to heal the rifts among the 25 current and future EU members, Italian Prime Minister and summit host Silvio Berlusconi urged leaders to put common European aspirations ahead of national interests.
“Europe’s interest is everyone’s interest,” he insisted.
But as Italian police fended off anti-globalisation protesters outside the summit venue, EU leaders inside Rome’s Palazzo dei Congressi quarrelled over the contents of the new treaty.
True to tradition, the bloc is split — this time among small and big nations, those demanding a major constitutional overhaul and others seeking only minor changes.
Interestingly, differences have also emerged on if the new treaty should include a reference to Europe’s “Christian heritage.”
Berlusconi is hoping to conclude the negotiations by December when he hands over the current Italian EU presidency to the Irish government.
France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are backing Italy’s hopes for a short treaty negotiation.
The six countries say negotiators must not unravel the hard-fought draft treaty drawn up this summer by a peoples’ convention headed by former French President Giscard d’Estaing.
Opening up a “Pandora’s box” of new difficulties would serve nobody’s interest, warned French President Jacques Chirac.
But smaller EU nations — as well as Poland and Spain — have said some aspects of the draft treaty are unacceptable.
Poland and Spain are pushing for a reference to Christianity in the treaty’s preamble and also reject any changes in their voting rights in the decision-making council of ministers.
Smaller nations led by Austria want no change in the European Commission and have rejected suggestions that the new post-expansion EU executive should have some Commissioners with no voting rights.
“There must be the same rights for every country,” warned Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
The European Commission meanwhile is pressing for curbs in countries’ use of unanimity in the council, warning that continuing use of national vetoes could “bring down” the EU edifice.
Leaders’ talks in Rome will be followed up by the bloc’s foreign ministers over the next few months.
Agencies add: Italy, holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, is determined to wrap up the negotiations by the end of the year and has tried to put tight limits on renegotiation, insisting no country may introduce amendments without a consensus for an alternative.
“Challenging one aspect or another of the compromise would inevitably open Pandora’s box and risk the failure of the Intergovernmental Conference with grave consequences,” French President Jacques Chirac told the summit.
The six founding members — Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg — plus Britain and Denmark want the text left largely intact.
Mr Giscard’s draft would see most EU policy decisions taken by a simple majority of member states representing 60 per cent of the bloc’s population.
Poland and Spain want to keep the complex voting system agreed in a marathon 2000 wrangle in Nice, which gave them power disproportionate to their populations.
Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller’s top foreign policy adviser, Tadeusz Iwinski, told reporters: “Changing Nice rules is out of the question.”
Germany, the EU’s biggest economy and main paymaster, has made veiled threats that its funding for the next EU budget for the period 2007-13, including regional aid vital for Spain and Poland, will depend on getting its way on the constitution.
The convention’s proposal to slim down the executive European Commission to 15 full voting members from 20 at present and 25 next year also came under fire.
