EU leaders deadlocked over voting system

Germany won’t back down from demanding a realignment of the European Union’s voting system, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said today, underlining a deadlock among EU leaders one week before a summit where they will try to reach an agreement on a new European constitution.

Schroeder spoke after meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who said his country – which holds the rotating EU presidency – wouldn’t push for a deal “at any cost” when leaders of the 15 EU nations and 10 countries that will join next May meet this Friday and Saturday in Brussels.

“I’m happy the Italian presidency sees the question of voting rights exactly as Germany does. We must stick to the result of the (EU constitutional) convention,” Schroeder said. “This is a question on which we are not movable.”

Spain and Poland are insisting the EU sticks to a 2000 deal struck in Nice, France, that gave them 27 votes in EU decision-making, almost equal to much more populous nations such as Britain, France, Germany and Italy which got 29 votes.

The draft constitution, drawn up earlier this year by the 105-member constitutional convention, abandons that formula and suggests decisions are adopted if at least half the EU states representing 60 percent of the bloc’s population are in favour.

Also disputed ahead of the Brussels summit is a proposal to cut the EU’s executive Commission to 15 members when the bloc expands. Several small countries are demanding each member continues to have a commissioner.

Berlusconi stressed the constitution must produce “a Europe that is capable of deciding, capable of functioning – so the Italian presidency is not preoccupied with closing (the question) at any cost at the upcoming meeting in Brussels.”

“With this meeting, the 50-50 optimism I expressed yesterday has risen slightly to 55-45 in favour of the summit succeeding in that,” Berlusconi said.

That, he added, was based on the fact Germany’s position coincided with that of a “large majority” of EU members rather than any hints of concessions.