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BERLIN, Dec 11: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder piled fresh pressure on Poland on Thursday to back a new European Union constitution, saying new members should not make their first votes in the bloc a veto.
The bloc is split ahead of a summit starting on Friday over the constitution’s overhaul of the EU voting system. A majority, led by Germany and France, want voting power to reflect population size. Poland and Spain want to keep the status quo.
The leaders of all 15 EU members and 10 states, including Poland, due to join in May will try to finalise the constitution designed to allow the bloc to function smoothly once it grows to 450 million people.
In an interview with German television after meeting Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski in Berlin, Mr Schroeder said he hoped Warsaw would reconsider and not vote against the draft.
“One cannot become a member of the European Union and want to start this membership with a veto,” Mr Schroeder told ARD television ahead of the summit. “I hope the Polish side will decide to agree with it.”
Mr Kwasniewski cast doubt on hopes of a compromise, telling reporters after the meeting: “If Germany’s position is unchangeable, then our position is also unchangeable.”
“If I were to be a prophet today, there seems to be no possibility of an agreement, with such a rigid stance on the part of Germany and Poland’s determined and strongly-argued position,” said the president.
Spain and Poland, each with less than half of Germany’s population, want to keep a formula giving them almost as many votes as Germany, Britain, France and Italy.
The proposed reform would have most decisions taken by a simple majority of states, representing at least 60 percent of EU citizens — favouring the biggest states.
“Everyone that wants something else has to explain why he wants that,” Mr Schroeder said. “And if they can’t do that, they should think about whether they want to take responsibility for the failure.
“Naturally, there can be marginal changes and that will be the case, but in the central question, it would be a setback for Europe if there were changes.”
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, host of the summit as Italy holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, told reporters on arrival in Brussels it would take a miracle to clinch an agreement, although he added “sometimes miracles happen”.
European Commission President Romano Prodi reminded EU leaders that the future of European integration was in their hands at the talks on the bloc’s first constitution.
“Hardly ever have our representatives had such a decisive meeting before them as the European Council starting tomorrow,” he told a news conference.
SPANISH CRITICISM: But the pre-summit mood was dominated by gloom and brinkmanship. A Spanish government official was highly critical of the way Italy had handled the pre-summit negotiations.
“We have not received a single proposal,” he said. “Nor have we received a visit from the presidency. We’re stunned by the way the Italian presidency has acted the past few months.”
Mr Prodi said one possible compromise would be to agree a comprehensive constitutional reform now but phase in elements gradually, with some possibly not entering force until 2014.
“In many cases I’d be ready to entertain staggered entry as long as the decision is final,” he told a news conference.
The constitution is meant to replace a treaty agreed at a marathon acrimonious summit in Nice in 2000, which now has few supporters.
The Polish president complained: “In Nice, we were invited to play a European game of soccer; now, just before the start of the game, we are told that we are about to play basketball.”
Mr Berlusconi said on Wednesday he would produce a last-minute proposal which he hoped Spain and Poland would accept, but the Spanish official questioned its existence.
“It’s secret, so it doesn’t exist because if it is not expressed in reality it’s left to the Platonic world of ideas,” he said.—Reuters
