The Czech Republic offered Poland an opportunity to climb down in talks on a new European Union treaty today but it is unclear whether Warsaw is interested in a face-saving compromise at a summit this week.
Poland is demanding a change to the reformed voting system agreed in 2004 which it says would give big states, especially Germany, too much power mainly at Warsaw's expense.
A Polish veto would block progress on a treaty for reforming creaking institutions designed half a century ago for a community one-quarter the size of today's enlarged 27-nation EU.
Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said Warsaw had received signals of a possible compromise but told reporters: "I want to say explicitly that for Poland to accept the voting system in the European constitution is not a compromise."
Only the Czechs have lent Poland half-hearted support, while the other 25 member states insist the voting reform must stay in the mandate for a new treaty, due to be approved by EU leaders at a Brussels summit on Thursday and Friday.
At an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra said Prague wanted to help find a compromise between Poland and Germany, which holds the EU presidency.
"As a country in Central Europe, we see Poland as a very important country. We definitely don't want to see Poland isolated," Vondra said.
In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair spelled out to a parliamentary committee his conditions for accepting a deal on a treaty to replace the European constitution rejected