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Exhausted leaders finally strike dealEuropean Union is ready for enlargement, ministers say
NICE, France -- Dog-tired Nice summit leaders who had been up most of the night finally agreed to a deal at 4:30 a.m. Monday to refashion European Union institutions to prepare for the bloc's expansion to 28 or more countries. A weary President Jacques Chirac of France, the summit host, said that it was a "decent result." Because of the complexity of the problems involved, he claimed, Nice would go down in history as one of the "great summits." Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson said: "It is a big day for Europe. We are ready for enlargement."
Battles involving the smaller countries, who feared their voting clout in the EU was being diminished in favor of big countries such as France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, had kept the 15 leaders struggling through the early hours. Some threatened walkoutsSome countries at times threatened to walk out of the talks and wreck the summit as they rejected a constant stream of new negotiating proposals from the French, the summit hosts as current holders of the rotating EU presidency. The last country to hold out was Belgium, which had been objecting to the Netherlands, with 5 million more inhabitants, having one vote more than it had in the EU system. But several of the smaller countries, including Portugal, Finland, Austria and Sweden, had battled long and hard on the plans to re-weight national votes in the Council of Ministers. In the end the leaders settled for the Big Four countries -- France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom -- having 29 weighted votes each. Spain got 27 and the Netherlands 13. Greece, Belgium and Portugal were allotted 12 each, with 10 apiece for Sweden and Austria. Denmark, Finland and Ireland were on 7, with Luxembourg on 4. By going into a fifth day, the Nice summit was the longest session ever attended by EU leaders. The meeting faced the task of solving the problems that EU leaders failed to crack in Amsterdam three years ago. Summit came close to breakdownTo avoid a paralysis of decision-making when the EU expands, the leaders needed to agree on plans to adjust national voting weights, trim the size of the European Commission (the EU executive) and scrap national vetoes in many more policy areas. At times it came close to breakdown as countries ignored appeals to "think European" and battled to protect their national interests. Diplomats reckoned the summit had in the end achieved about 60 percent of its ambitious aims, and even the commission reforms will be delayed several years. More than 30 policy areas will move to qualified majority voting with an end to national vetoes. But those vetoes will still apply in some key areas, including taxes and social security, on which British Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to budge. The European Parliament has been expanded well beyond the target ceiling as affronted nations were given consolation prizes or more members. Germans didn't press claim for more votesThe European Commission, the EU executive, will consist of one commissioner from each member state beginning in 2005. (There could be 21 EU countries by then, and currently France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain have two). But only when the union reaches 27 states will there be a slimming down, with countries from then on rotating in their membership. The commission president will have new "hire and fire" powers to reshuffle his team of national commissioners. On the weighting of national votes, Germany agreed not to press a claim for extra votes to reflect its population (20 million larger than any other EU state), but it did win greater representation in the European Parliament. Treaty may yet face more problems
Germany and Italy also had their way in the setting up of a new Inter Governmental Conference in 2004 to define relations between the EU institutions and the member states. The negotiations were fractious. Small countries complained of bullying and partiality from the French presidency, and Chirac clashed sharply with Commission President Romano Prodi. Even though a deal has finally been agreed to in Nice, the treaty may yet face further problems. Elmar Brok, the European Parliament monitor on EU reform, said that it would be very difficult to get the Parliament to agree on the treaty -- a necessity for it to become law. RELATED STORIES: Agreement at marathon summit paves way for EU expansion RELATED SITES: Members of the European Parliament | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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