EU: Fifteen European countries have warned that the EU's new constitution must make clear that all member-states will be treated equally in a reformed Commission.
Some expressed doubts that the negotiations to agree the constitution can be completed before the end of this year.
Ministers from the 15 countries, mostly small EU member- states and new member-states, met in Prague yesterday to agree a common approach to the negotiations, which begin in Rome on October 4th. The Minister of State for European Affairs, Mr Dick Roche, said that the consensus at the meeting was that only a limited renegotiation of the text agreed at the Convention on the Future of Europe was necessary.
"There were differences from country to country but the general view was that to reopen the whole business would not be a good idea," he said.
Mr Roche said that the Government was willing to agree to a Commission composed of voting and non-voting members as long as it was clear that voting rights would be rotated among member-states on the basis of strict equality. He said that the role of a proposed president of the European Council, who would serve for up to five years, remained to be clarified.
The Government wants assurances that there will be no attempt to introduce majority voting on tax issues and insists that national vetoes must be retained for issues concerning the criminal justice system.
In common with many countries in central and eastern Europe, Ireland opposes proposals that would allow as few as one-third of EU countries to co-operate more closely on foreign policy and defence within EU structures.
Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands stayed away from yesterday's meeting, saying they did not share the approach of the countries gathered in Prague. Belgium's prime minister, Mr Guy Verhofstadt, said yesterday that the constitutional draft should be accepted as it is. A Dutch government spokesman said that the Netherlands did not want to side with any particular group at this stage.
Mr Roche insisted that yesterday's meeting did not represent the intensification of a division between large and small states. He pointed out that Poland, the largest of the new members, was represented at the meeting.
Germany's Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, warned last week against any attempt to reopen fundamental issues after negotiations begin in Rome.
"The result is outstanding and represents a really successful compromise, and by that I mean that everybody can live with it, even if no one is completely satisfied with it," he said.
Italy, which currently holds the EU presidency, wants to complete the negotiations in time for a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels in December. The talks will be conducted by foreign ministers during their regular meetings in Brussels but an extra two days of talks have been planned just before the December summit.
