6/18/2007

Poland not budging on EU voting rights: Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Poland is sticking to its hardline stance and insisting changes be made to the way voting rights are shared among European Union countries.

'Fundamentally, the positions have not changed,' said Merkel, whose state holds the EU's rotating presidency until the end of the month, after talks on Saturday with Polish President Lech Kaczynski.

Poland has threatened to veto talks on a new treaty of sorely needed EU reforms because it believes it will lose clout under a proposed new voting system.

Merkel said she would continue 'intensive talks' with EU leaders this week to try to make headway on a treaty to replace the bloc's constitution, which was rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands two years ago.

'We will try everything, but a presidency cannot succeed alone if all the other member states aren't ready to compromise,' she told reporters after talks in Luxembourg with Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.

EU leaders meet in Brussels from Thursday to try to finalise the broad outlines of a treaty, which they want to implement by 2009, so that the issue does not undermine public confidence during the European Parliament elections.

Warsaw argues that the 'double majority' voting system under consideration transfers voting power from small and medium-sized countries to larger ones like Germany, which has twice the population of Poland.

It wants voting power to be based on the square root of of a country's population.

Merkel said that she did not consider it 'an option' to leave the issue of calculating votes open for negotiation at an intergovernmental conference planned for July to narrow down last differences over the treaty.

Juncker, the EU's longest serving leader in office, expressed optimism about the new text, saying that he saw 'more signs in favour of an agreement than discord at the summit.'

He also expressed solidarity with Merkel and said he would help her explain to his EU counterparts how important it is to 'retain the substance' of the constitution.

Source:forbes.com



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