By Nicola Smith - 10th December 2003
The Italian Presidency on Tuesday released draft proposals aimed to overcome the final hurdles to agreement on a new EU constitution this weekend.
The document tackles contentious sticking points over foreign policy, tax, social security and judicial cooperation.
According to the FT, the draft appears to deal with one of the UK’s chief concerns by putting an “emergency brake” on any attempts to remove national vetoes over social security and judicial cooperation.
The document also seems to assure the EU’s four neutral countries that their special constitutional position on defence will not be breached by the constitution’s “mutual defence clause.”
However, initial reports reveal that Rome’s draft falls short of meeting the concerns of the UK and Ireland over taxation policy.
Retaining the national veto on tax is one of the UK’s so-called “red-line” issues and UK premier Tony Blair has warned he will not back down.
Irish diplomats have also cautioned that Dublin will not accept any threat to its autonomy on tax matters or any move towards harmonisation.
Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen said the government would not shy from voting down the treaty if its concerns are not addressed, reports the Irish Independent.
And little headway appears to have been made on the contentious question of voting rights, the issue that threatens to scupper a deal this weekend.
Spain and Poland are refusing to budge from their insistence on sticking to the terms of the Nice Treaty which gave them voting powers disproportionate to their size.
The EU decided in Nice in 2000 to give Spain and Poland, each with about 40 million people, nearly as many votes as Germany, with more than 80 million.
With just two days to go before the start of the talks, Poland is becoming increasingly intransigent in its position.
“As far as Polish interests are concerned, we will remain inflexible and I will be even more inflexible once I get to Brussels,” Prime Minister Leszek Miller told the Polish press.
Any new system would only take effect in 2009 in any case. On Monday Miller proposed maintaining the current voting system subject to review before 2009.
EU heavyhitters France and Germany, who are strongly opposed to the Nice voting system, are expected to urge Tony Blair to pressure his Polish and Spanish allies on the issue.
The British leader will be meeting with his French and German counterparts to discuss tactics and narrow their differences before the keynote summit.
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