EU: An EU plan to persuade member states to give up their veto over new European justice legislation was strongly opposed by several justice ministers yesterday.
Germany and Ireland both criticised the proposal tabled by the European Commission and Finland, which holds the EU presidency, raising the prospect that it will be dropped altogether or heavily amended.
Several states, including The Netherlands, Slovakia, Britain, Malta and Poland, also expressed concern to the commission, which wants to radically change how decisions are taken and initiated in the justice field.
Under EU rules, decisions on sensitive issues such as judicial and police co-operation on criminal matters must be taken unanimously by the 25 member states.
Only in a few justice areas, such as illegal immigration, can EU decisions be agreed by a qualified majority of states, which is the process that governs most other EU policy areas.
The commission argues that the process is inefficient and unwieldy, causing delays to key legislation and often resulting in legal compromise.
It wants to remove the need for unanimity in justice areas, a proposal already in the EU constitution - the treaty stalled following negative referendum results in France and The Netherlands.
Germany's justice minister, Brigitte Zypries, said that dropping the national veto on justice policy would amount to selectively implementing parts of the stalled treaty.
"Once you start cherry-picking, you devalue the real thing . . . We want the constitutional treaty to be passed in its entirety," said Ms Zypries, whose country will take over presidency in January from Finland.
At the meeting, Tánaiste Michael McDowell reiterated his opposition to the proposal.
"Ireland was on the side of the healthy majority in opposing this," said Mr McDowell, who predicted that the commission would have to redefine its proposal in the coming months.
In a significant development, British home office minister Joan Ryan said existing EU agreements in key areas of cross-border police and judicial co-operation showed the right of national veto did not have to be sacrificed.
Her comments reflected growing scepticism in Britain about the proposal, which had initially been greeted with enthusiasm by the British foreign office, if not the home office.
Following the unusually frank discussions by ministers, EU justice commissioner Franco Frattini renewed his plea to states to consider dropping their vetoes.
"Can we abandon efforts because we want the constitution in force? My answer, and the answer of many member states is no . . . I agree that we need the constitution but, if we wait, then it is possible to be paralysed."
Ministers will meet in October to discuss the issue again.