LUXEMBOURG, June 17: European foreign ministers entered talks on Sunday on a new EU treaty warning that extremely tough negotiations lay ahead, with several members states insisting on changes to Germany’s outline.
“I cannot give you any promise now about how far we are going to get tonight in reaching a common understanding on individual elements of a compromise,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinemeier said.
“What I can promise you here and now is that we are in for a very long evening indeed,” added Steinmeier, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency till the end of the month.
As the foreign ministers were gathering to prepare for a key EU summit in Brussels starting on Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leading the charge for a new treaty, met with Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.
She said Poland was sticking to its hardline stance that changes be made to the way voting rights are shared among European Union member states.
“Fundamentally, the positions have not changed,” said Merkel, a day after talks with Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
Warsaw has threatened to veto talks on the sorely-need reforms because it believes it will lose clout under a proposed new voting system.
Merkel said she would continue “intensive” talks with EU leaders this week to try to make headway on the treaty to replace the bloc’s constitution, which was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands two years ago.
“We will try everything, but a presidency cannot succeed alone if all the other member states aren’t ready to compromise,” she told reporters.
Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn was cautiously optimistic that Warsaw could yet give ground.
“Poland is going to realise at the last moment that it is part of Europe and that as part of Europe it is necessary to make concessions,” he said.
The EU leaders want to finalise the broad outlines of the treaty, which they have pledged to try to implement by 2009, so that the issue does not influence European Parliament elections that year.
Germany last week gave the foreign ministers a report on the state of play in negotiations, setting out bones of contention, such as inclusion of the EU charter of fundamental rights and even use of the very word ‘constitution’.
The new treaty would be a ‘reform treaty’ amending existing ones, rather than an overarching one to replace them – thus helping avoid the need for referendums in several countries.—AFP