By Bruno Waterfield - 22nd May 2004
Europe’s foreign ministers are to take on “the most sensitive institutional questions” surrounding a European constitution – including the issue of EU voting rights.
Rifts over the EU balance of power at councils of Europe’s ministers are still deep at Brussels constitution talks set for Monday.
Spain and Poland are still fighting to preserve a deal that allows both countries to punch above their population weight in key votes of ministers.
Madrid and Warsaw have both softened a hard-line stance over the method used to calculate votes but are still holding out for a percentage deal that benefits both.
Dublin is holding to the principle of ‘double majority’ – a majority of ministers and a majority of the EU’s population – but is opening bids to crunch the numbers.
New vote proposals to link clout more directly to population size alienated Warsaw and Madrid and sank last year’s constitution negotiations.
Warsaw and Madrid oppose draft constitution proposals to set the ‘double majority’ at 50 per cent of ministers who also represent 60 per cent of the population.
Both France and Germany wanted the shift, as a move toward a simplified decision-making process based on population, and as a more effective means of policy execution.
But Poland and Spain fear – along with others – that such a balance gives Britain, France and Germany a permanent veto with the EU’s ‘big three’ wielding votes for 44 per of the population.
Under a scheme floated by Ireland a majority of 55 per cent also representing 65 per cent of Europe’s population would be the threshold for a decision by European ministers – cancelling out a ‘big three’ bloc.
But Spain and Poland are holding out for lower blocking thresholds with permutations of minister majorities and population calibrations said to be even more unwieldy than the status quo.
Speaking last week, Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos stressed that Madrid was looking for a better deal.
“Within double majority we are defending what we think is reasonable in the interests of Spain," he said.
“It would be stupid to accept automatically the system proposed.”
Ireland is also floating proposals to count votes differently, overhauling a system where abstentions effectively count as negative.
Tweaking “so that abstentions are counted as neither a positive nor negative vote”, Dublin suggests, could make EU decision-making easier.
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