Poland and Britain throw spanners in EU treaty talks

A MEETING of foreign ministers broke up in disarray last night as Poland blocked attempts to redraft the EU constitution.

Its stance is threatening to derail the EU summit in Brussels later this week, when the heads of state will try to break the impasse.

Britain has also thrown a spanner in the works, with a list of no-go areas to ensure a British referendum will not be required.

There have been dire warnings that the EU will be in crisis if a new treaty is not agreed to streamline the workings of the 27-member body.

The German presidency has agreed to radically alter the format of the all-embracing constitution drawn up three years ago by more than 250 parliamentarians from member states.

Following months of consultations, the Germans have identified six issues that need to be addressed in the draft document.

But the Poles are unhappy with what is considered a key element of the document — the Instead of a double majority (55% of states and 65% of the EU’s population), they have produced a mathematical formula based on the square root of each country’s population. They say it would not be as easy for big states to block agreements.

The Poles were isolated at yesterday’s meeting when even the Czechs appeared to withdraw their support.

Europe Minister Dick Roche said: “They are being very difficult and there were a lot of dark mutterings about them, especially when their minister announced that they had tens if not hundreds of other questions.”

But Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said: “We are analysing other ideas they put to us but at first glance none can be a substitute for the system that we have proposed.”