All EU countries to lose out if there's no deal on new treaty: Germany
Tuesday, 19 June 2007
LUXEMBOURG, Jun 18 (AFP): German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned Monday that all EU countries will lose out if there is no deal on a new treaty to drag the Union out of its institutional malaise.
"If there is no compromise, no agreement to be reached at the council later this week, everyone will have lost, the European Union and each and every member country" he said, referring to an EU summit beginning in Brussels Thursday.
Steinmeier, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency until the end of the month, and his EU counterparts ended talks late Sunday aimed at overcoming major obstacles to a new treaty of reforms, without any clear breakthrough.
Agreement on the sorely-needed reform package could end two years of political uncertainty sparked by the failure of the EU's constitution and could relaunch confidence in the European project.
But Poland, Britain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands remain the key obstacles to the German EU presidency's efforts to clinch a deal.
Warsaw argues that the "double majority" system transfers voting power from small and medium-sized countries to larger ones like Germany, which has over twice the population of Poland.
Poland Monday distributed its own proposal to modify the constitution's plan for EU voting rights to reporters covering the foreign ministers' talks in Luxembourg.
It wants voting power to be based on the square root of a country's population -- whereby a country of 36 million people would get six votes and a country of 81 million would get nine.
"There are many ways of moving forward but certainly Poland won't accept the constitutional treaty voting provisions," Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said as she arrived for Monday's talks.
Others were voicing reserved optimism that a deal can be reached.
"I think we will have a treaty," said her Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg, without giving details.
Austria's Ursula Plassnik said Sunday's discussions had been "less emotion, more fact-based."
"There is a feeling that a lot of countries are moving... I am more optimistic than before," she said.
However there was general agreement that Sunday's talks amounted to little more than a statement of each country's position on the treaty issue, with Poland and Britain most insistent on changes to the original constitution which 18 member states have ratified.
Britain is particularly concerned that the planned enshrinement of the EU's charter of fundamental rights would effect its labour laws.
The ministers are ready to scrap mention of EU symbols, such as the flag and anthem which eurosceptics see as heralding a superstate to threaten national sovereignties.
"If there is no compromise, no agreement to be reached at the council later this week, everyone will have lost, the European Union and each and every member country" he said, referring to an EU summit beginning in Brussels Thursday.
Steinmeier, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency until the end of the month, and his EU counterparts ended talks late Sunday aimed at overcoming major obstacles to a new treaty of reforms, without any clear breakthrough.
Agreement on the sorely-needed reform package could end two years of political uncertainty sparked by the failure of the EU's constitution and could relaunch confidence in the European project.
But Poland, Britain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands remain the key obstacles to the German EU presidency's efforts to clinch a deal.
Warsaw argues that the "double majority" system transfers voting power from small and medium-sized countries to larger ones like Germany, which has over twice the population of Poland.
Poland Monday distributed its own proposal to modify the constitution's plan for EU voting rights to reporters covering the foreign ministers' talks in Luxembourg.
It wants voting power to be based on the square root of a country's population -- whereby a country of 36 million people would get six votes and a country of 81 million would get nine.
"There are many ways of moving forward but certainly Poland won't accept the constitutional treaty voting provisions," Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said as she arrived for Monday's talks.
Others were voicing reserved optimism that a deal can be reached.
"I think we will have a treaty," said her Czech counterpart Karel Schwarzenberg, without giving details.
Austria's Ursula Plassnik said Sunday's discussions had been "less emotion, more fact-based."
"There is a feeling that a lot of countries are moving... I am more optimistic than before," she said.
However there was general agreement that Sunday's talks amounted to little more than a statement of each country's position on the treaty issue, with Poland and Britain most insistent on changes to the original constitution which 18 member states have ratified.
Britain is particularly concerned that the planned enshrinement of the EU's charter of fundamental rights would effect its labour laws.
The ministers are ready to scrap mention of EU symbols, such as the flag and anthem which eurosceptics see as heralding a superstate to threaten national sovereignties.