POLAND:Poland has proposed an alternative EU voting system it says benefits smaller and medium-sized member states in an attempt to revive the stalled constitutional treaty.
The so-called "square root model", developed by scientists at the Jagellonian University in Krakow in 2004, takes into account population size, just like the current double majority system backed by Germany and other countries.
However the proposal - already discussed and discarded in Brussels three years ago - reduces the weighting gap and corresponding loss of influence of medium-sized countries, long a source of discontent in Poland.
"The essence of our proposal is that we accept the double majority system and that we propose something new which makes the system fairer and more democratic," said Marek Cichocki, senior adviser to president Lech Kaczynski and chief negotiator with Berlin during Germany's EU presidency.
Until last weekend, Warsaw was anxious to retain the Nice Treaty voting system in the Council of Ministers, the EU's most important decision-making body.
That system, currently in operation, leaves Poland just two votes shy of Germany despite having only half its population. The proposed new double majority system cuts those votes, prompting leading Polish politicians to adopt the notorious "Nice or Death" strategy.
The previous Polish government eventually agreed to the new proposed system, but the current administration is anxious to renegotiate the deal, although no longer on the basis of the Nice Treaty. "Our proposal is a combination of the double majority and an improved democratic element," said Mr Cichocki of the proposal, which would give Germany nine votes on the Council of Ministers and Poland six.
France, Britain and Italy would each receive eight votes. Ireland would have two votes. Mr Cichocki admitted yesterday that he had yet to formally present the proposal, which he called a "historical rebate . . . for 50 years Poland for no fault of its own was outside EU integration".
Reviving the square root proposal raised eyebrows in Berlin yesterday.
German officials are anxious to avoid getting bogged down in the details of the constitutional treaty, agreed under the Irish EU presidency in 2004.
"Then we'd have to start the negotiations over and no one is interested in that," said one German official. "We'll just have to wait and see what Poland really wants."