EU summit locked in treaty deadlock

FE Team | Published: June 23, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

BRUSSELS, June 22 (AFP): European Union leaders were locked in intense talks on the second day of a summit Friday seeking to break a deadlock with Britain and Poland over a new reform treaty.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the current EU president, met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in an effort to ease concerns about his country's objections.
Blair entered the European Council building on foot and, like Polish President Lech Kaczynski, ignored reporters as he strode in for the first of many bilateral meetings on the summit sidelines.
"We will exchange our views and assessments of the situation. We shall also work on the text. I can't tell you more for the moment, only that we shall continue to work hard," Merkel said.
The EU is looking for a new way to simplify decision-making after the collapse of its proposed constitution which was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
After months of negotiations, the Germany presidency, which runs until the end of next week, distributed a new draft text of its "reform treaty" to its EU partners for the first time Tuesday.
The treaty is meant to simplify the way the 27-member bloc makes decisions as it expands, establish a "foreign minister" and install a longer-term president to replace the cumbersome and expensive rotating system in place now.
Merkel did not say what modifications might be made to the document but it was likely that a new draft would be thrashed out at a working lunch.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy did get one concession out of the Germans, his spokesman said, convincing them to drop a reference in a new treaty to "free and undistorted competition".
However the obtacles to an agreement remained formidable.
When asked whether he was optimistic that a solution would be found Friday, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt said: "No, I'm not sure."
As the summit has approached, Britain has taken an increasingly tougher line, warning that it will not cede control over foreign policy, the judicial and police system, or tax and social security.
It also opposes making a Charter on Fundamental Rights-the EU's civil, political, economic and social rights-legally binding because it could enshrine the right of workers to strike.
But diplomats said that this issue could be overcome.
However Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, whose country is one of 18 to have ratified the constitution and is keen to see much of it retained, expressed concern that Britain had hardened its stance.
"This is a development that should worry all of us, including Britain," she said, adding that London's problems are issues that "go to the core of what we understand the European Union to be."
Poland, with apparently fading support from the Czech Republic, has demanded changes to the way votes would be shared among the EU countries.
It maintains that the "double majority" system, proposed by Merkel from the old constitution and pencilled in as part of the future treaty, favours big countries like Germany.
Rumours suggest Kaczynski's talks with his EU partners have been difficult so far. After his talks with Merkel, one source said: "The chances of success are no better than before."
The Netherlands, for its part, is still demanding more power for national parliaments and wants to see the final treaty document before it decides whether to call a possibly perilous referendum.
"If we strip the treaty bare, if all the elements of substance were to disappear, we would refuse this new treaty," said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's longest-serving leader.
For Merkel, as her presidency nears its end, time is running out. She wants to unveil the broad outlines of a treaty agreement and submit it to a intergovernmental conference next month to finalize the details.
This would leave a year for countries to ratify it so that public confidence in the European project will not be undermined during European Parliament elections in 2009.