EU Constitution Faces Uncertain Future

After Tueday’s summit in Paris, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder made it clear that they will not go along with a watered-down version of the draft of Europe's first ever constitution.

"The chancellor and I will not accept an accord at any price," Chirac said. "I hope that we can reach an agreement with Spain and Poland, but I’m not certain of it."

Spain and Portugal have been resisting plans to change EU voting rights to reflect population sizes rather than give each country an equal say. Under the 2002 Nice Treaty, which would be replaced by the constitution, Poland and Spain would have voting rights disproportionate to their size. The two countries are demanding that the Nice provisions remain intact.

Schröder said he was going into Friday’s meeting in Brussels as a "skeptical optimist," adding that both he and Chirac still hoped to "get a deal." But "voting structures must be designed so that no one country along can hold up the (decision-making) process on key issues," Schröder said. "That means majority voting as far as is possible."

"Francallmagne" if EU constitution fails?

The two leaders also made it clear that they would not let other countries stop their desire to grow closer. "We do a lot with each other and for each other," Schröder said. "You can rely on that, whatever the situation."

German and French officials have suggested a closer cooperation between their two countries, some even going as far as suggesting dual citizenship.

Others, including former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt, reject such ideas of a "Francallmagne." "We need a new treaty for a larger Europe, not a new one for France and Germany", newsmagazine Der Spiegel quoted him as saying.

Spain and Poland lobby London, criticize Rome

Meanwhile, the leaders of Spain and Poland lobbied Britain to support them in preventing a majority voting system and accused the Italian EU presidency of failing to come up with a working compromise.

"It’s impossible to reach a compromise under the current circumstances," Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar said. He agreed with his Polish colleague, Leszek Miller, that Italy, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, had a "moral duty" to serve as chief mediator in the conflict.

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has said he supports France and Germany on the voting issue. Miller also planned to talk with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to get his support in the matter.

Blair himself still resists the draft constitution for other reasons: He insists on assurances that each country will continue to keep veto power on foreign and security policy issues.

Italy attempts to mediate

Trying to deal with Blair’s concerns, Berlusconi on Tuesday presented a new draft of the constitution which would allow for national interest "emergency breaks" on any plans to do away with national vetoes in the areas of social security and judicial cooperation, the Financial Times newspaper reported. British diplomats in Brussels already rejected the idea as "not acceptable."

With his proposal, Berlusconi also attempts to accommodate the four EU countries that are not members of the NATO alliance -- Austria, Ireland, Finland and Sweden -- by guaranteeing them recognition of their special defense status as far as a new "mutual defense clause" in the draft document is concerned.

Top-level negotiations to resolve the problems are expected to continue up until Friday’s conference. Chancellor Schröder will meet Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski in Berlin on Thursday. A trilateral discussion between Schröder, Chirac and Blair bas been scheduled for Friday.