European Union:Polish officials say they will veto talks on reviving the EU constitutional treaty if their concerns over a new voting system are not on the agenda.
Warsaw's stance could hamper Germany's plans to secure a mandate at this month's EU summit, the climax of its six-month presidency, for an intergovernmental conference (IGC) in the second half of 2007 to discuss the treaty.
"We will stand by the position that opening the inter-governmental conference is not worth it if elements of Poland's stance aren't part of the [ negotiating] mandate," Marek Cichocki, foreign policy adviser to President Lech Kaczynski, told the Dziennik newspaper.
Poland is happy with the Nice treaty voting system which gives it two fewer votes than Germany in the Council of Ministers despite having only half the population. The proposed new double majority system cuts those votes, and prompted leading Polish politicians to adopt the notorious "Nice or Death" strategy.
The last Polish government gave up that position as part of the constitutional deal in 2004. Now prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski has said his country was willing "to die" for a new "square root" voting model.
This system is based on a square root of population and takes into account a country's size just like the current double majority system backed by Germany and other countries.
The square root proposal, discarded in Brussels three years ago, reduces the weighting gap and corresponding loss of influence of medium-sized countries, long an issue in Poland.
The Czech Republic is the only EU member to back Warsaw's proposal, which was described as a problem by European Parliament president Hans-Gert Pöttering. Leading German MEP Elmar Brok said yesterday that the chances were good for reaching agreement on a slimmed-down, simplified treaty.
"Of course that isn't certain," he told Der Spiegel, with an eye on Warsaw. "If it doesn't succeed during the German presidency, then there won't be a new attempt."
Another issue to be resolved is the wish of the British, the Dutch and others to remove the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which would give added powers to the European Court of Justice.
British prime minister Tony Blair signalled at last week's G8 summit that Britain might approve without a referendum a simplified treaty excluding the charter.
