EU Towards an EU constitution: how they got from the Nice Treaty to this week's summit.
December 2000: After marathon negotiations, the EU approves the Nice Treaty to prepare for the accession of eastern European states, but the pact soon comes under fire. Critics single out:
a complex voting system giving Spain and Poland almost as many votes as Germany, which has twice their population;
limited progress on moving from unanimity to qualified majority voting, key for decision-making in a 25-state union;
allowing each state a member of the European Commission until the EU reaches 27 member-states, instead of cutting down the size of the executive as some countries wanted.
December 2001: EU leaders call a Convention on the future of Europe under the chairmanship of former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing to consider the bloc's constitutional arrangements.
Giscard and a 105-member forum of members of parliament and national deputies are given 16 months to propose how to make the EU more efficient, transparent and democratic.
They are asked to look at the division of power between member-states and the EU, the powers of the Commission and the European Parliament, how to make decision-making more efficient, and how to simplify the bloc's governing treaties.
February 2002: The Convention begins work, meeting regularly to discuss proposals from its leaders, working groups and governments.
December 2002: The EU concludes long-running accession negotiations with 10 mostly ex-communist countries in central and eastern Europe. They became full EU members on May 1st last.
June 2003: The Convention approves by consensus a blueprint featuring a long-term president of the European Council with limited powers, an EU foreign minister, a European Commission slimmed down to 15 full members, and more powers for the European Parliament.
It envisages extending majority voting on a wide range of issues but, at Britain's insistence, not taxation and foreign policy. It proposes a new voting system based on a majority of states representing 60 per cent of the bloc's population. At a summit in Greece, EU leaders welcome Giscard's draft charter as "a good basis" for negotiations on a final text in an Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC).
October 2003: The IGC opens at a Rome summit under an Italian presidency. Germany, France and other founder members oppose changes to the Convention draft. Poland and Spain launch a fight to preserve the Nice Treaty vote weightings.
Smaller countries demand that each country keep its own commissioner. Britain and some others oppose timid steps to extend majority voting to some aspects of tax and social policy as well as justice and foreign policy.
November 2003: EU foreign ministers in Naples, Italy, agree on limited changes to the draft constitution, but key questions remain open. France, Germany and Britain announce joint proposals for closer defence co-operation, which win grudging US approval.
December 2003: EU summit negotiations collapse over the voting system, with Poland and Spain pitted against Germany and France.
March 2004: After a three-month period of reflection, new EU president - Ireland - wins agreement to resume negotiations with the aim of concluding in mid-June. Government changes in Spain and Poland produce new leaders willing to compromise on voting systems. But Britain digs in its heels against more majority voting after Prime Minister Tony Blair concedes a referendum on the treaty.
June 2004: Ireland puts forward a compromise package on the eve of the summit aimed at settling voting rights dispute by raising proportions of member-states and of population required to approve most decisions. It also proposes new wording on the Commission's power to police budget deficits, handing Germany a victory as member-states would have the ultimate say in recommendations given to a country to trim its deficit.