PORTUGAL: Poland threatens EU treaty delay at last minute

Poland's president threatened on Thursday (October 18) to delay talks on a new European Union treaty at a summit where EU leaders hope to finalise the charter to reform the bloc's institutions. Agreement would end a crisis of confidence sparked by Dutch and French voters' rejection of a European constitution in 2005 and open the way for a toned-down treaty that includes a foreign policy chief with more clout and a long-term EU president. The treaty also provides for a more democratic decision-making system and more say for the European and national parliaments but avoids mention of an EU anthem or flag. Poland, which fought against changes to the voting system at a treaty summit in June, has recently voiced greater optimism that it would win a compromise on its demands. President Lech Kaczynski told Polish radio before leaving for the summit that the Poland don't want anything more than is their right. Asked what would happen if Polish demands were not met, Kaczynski replied: "We will have to delay the discussion". European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said that there was not excuse for the heads of government not to come to agreement. Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, chairman of the two-day summit, said he was very confident of a deal this week. "I think we are getting very, very close to a new treaty and this will be called the Lisbon Treaty," he told reporters after a pre-summit meeting with trade union and employers' leaders, he said at the summit in Lisbon. Diplomats ascribed Kaczynski's brinkmanship to the fact that Poland holds an early parliamentary election on Sunday. The president's brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is fighting for re-election and flagging in opinion polls. Although Poles are generally pro-European, the Kaczynskis' conservative core electorate tend to be more suspicious of the EU and happier to see the twins taking a strong nationalist stand. Warsaw's main demand is to include in the treaty, or as a protocol, a provision allowing groups of countries that are just short of a blocking minority to delay a decision for a "reasonable time" -- in practice, several months. Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean Claude Juncker said yielding to Poland's demands would endanger the proper functioning of the EU institutions and added that European leaders had no other choice but to come to an agreement. "I think that Europeans have no other choice since they have the obligation to succeed, and only to succeed. I think that we will come to an agreement on a reforming treaty this evening. I think that the problem which our Polish friends have put on the table remain serious. Whilst taking account of the Polish point of view we have to ensure that extending those areas where we could vote with a qualified majority before are not cancelled by the re-introduction, through the back door and via a bad formulation of the treaty that would lead to a return of the unanimity principle," Juncker said. French Minister of European Affairs Michel Barnier also said he believed that Europe was really close to a deal but added that a referendum on the treaty was not necessary. "I hope that all the governments' heads of state are determined to sort out this question of how the European Union functions because the rest of the world is not waiting for us i think an agreement is within close reach following all the work that has been done at the last European Council under the presidency of Angela Merkel and France participated in that actively with president Sarkozy. And thanks to the Portuguese presidency. so I think that an agreement is within reach," Barnier said. The EU has spent the last decade debating how to reform its sclerotic institutions to cope with its near doubling in size from 15 to 27 members, and with the challenges of globalisation. Italy is also presenting a problem by insisting on maintaining parity with France and Britain in European Parliament members, despite a reallocation plan which would give it fewer seats based on population size. However Prodi has made clear he would not block political agreement on the reform treaty but wanted Italy's concerns to be taken into account. "You know very well Italy's position. Nothing to add," Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, coming to his first EU summit under pressure to hold a referendum on the treaty, said in a letter to Socrates, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency: "This is the right time to bring an end to this prolonged period of inward-looking institutional debate." An attempt by British referendum campaigners to hoist a giant inflatable ballot box at the summit site fizzled when they we moved on by security men and their generator then failed to produce enough hot air to get the balloon airborne. One snag was removed when Austria accepted a European Commission move to suspend legal action against it for five years over quotas on foreign students, designed to stop medical students from neighbouring Germany swamping its universities.

ITN Source | October 18, 2007

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