Members reject French proposals

By Vaiju Naravane

NICE (FRANCE), DEC. 9. No one except the French seems to have found much to commend in the compromise document proposed by France at the European Summit underway here. France, which holds the rotating European presidency, has managed to raise the hackles of practically everyone, including Germany, its closest E.U. ally.

Using what has been dubbed ``the confessional method'', the French President, Mr. Jacques Chirac, and the Prime Minister, Mr. Lionel Jospin, held long, closed-door sessions throughout Friday evening and night, with all the E.U. leaders turn by turn. On Saturday morning, they came out with a compromise proposal which had the singular quality of displeasing everyone. Under the compromise plan which attempts to tackle the four pressing areas of E.U. institutional reform, namely: weighted voting, the size of the Commission, the ceding of veto powers in certain key areas in favour of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) and budgetary flexibility, the French have proposed the following:

That the present vote parity between the big four - France, Germany, Italy and Britain be retained. Each of these countries currently has 10 votes. France suggests these be multiplied by three to total 30 votes each. Spain would then have 28 votes while the tiny Duchy of Luxembourg would retain its present three votes. Under the French formula, the large countries' votes will be multiplied by three, those of medium sized countries by two and a half, while small countries will see their votes doubled.

But these proposals have brought out the ire of medium sized nations such as the Netherlands which refuses to accept that a country like Poland, because of its larger population, will end up with more votes.

In exchange for this reduction in votes, France has proposed that the big four nations will lose one of the two Commissioners they have at present when the next reshuffle of posts takes place in 2005. Under the compromise formula, all the countries will retain at least one Commissioner until this date. But once the E.U. has been enlarged to 27 members or by 2010, the number of Commissioners will be limited to 20, the posts being attributed through rotation. France has also given to the German request for an examination of ways and means to simplify the European Treaty.

The small countries are likely to reject this proposal because they appear determined to retain their Commissioners at all costs.

Several officials today described the situation as being ``extremely tense'' and said there was generalised resentment over Mr. Chirac's ``blatant attempts to bully'' them into accepting greater budgetary flexibility. His efforts to allocate more to the farm sector in order to defray the costs created by the crashing beef and animal feed markets were stonewalled by his European partners and the French President had to give in on this point.

On the question of QMV and the ceding of veto powers in key areas too, there was no agreement. The British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, flatly refused to give up his power of veto over anything concerning fiscal policy, defence or immigration and the British press had a field day carrying reports on the friction which reportedly marked the dealings between the two men.

The German Chancellor, Mr. Gerhard Schroeder, too made it plain that he would not go along with French proposals for budgetary flexibility or give up his veto on the question of immigration and asylum. As expected, national rather than European interests continue to dominate the Summit.

France's ``arrogant'' handling of the negotiations has also come in for severe criticism, especially from the smaller countries such as Austria, Finland, Ireland and the Netherlands. Commission officials say that the Commission President, Mr. Romano Prodi, is likely to step in to break the impasse.

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Section  : International
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