GERMANY: Germany's Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, has warned that failure to make the European Union's decision-making more efficient could lead to the emergence of a "core Europe" led by France and Germany.
Speaking in Berlin, Mr Fischer said that the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) negotiating a new constitutional treaty for the EU should remain faithful to the draft approved by the Convention on the Future of Europe.
"Everyone who thinks in terms of a strong European Union must defend this result. In the next two decades, I don't see that we'll get a better draft," he said.
EU leaders are due to agree the final text of the treaty at a summit in Brussels next month but member-states remain divided over such issues as the right of each country to nominate a Commissioner and a proposal for a new voting system in the Council of Ministers.
Germany is among the most enthusiastic supporters of a plan to replace the present system of weighted votes in the Council with a qualified-majority system, defined as a simple majority of member-states comprising at least 60 per cent of the EU's population.
Mr Fischer urged Spain and Poland to drop their opposition to the new voting system and warned that the institutional arrangements agreed for the EU at Nice were inadequate in a Union of 25 or more.
"An enlarged Union based on Nice is not in the interest of any member-state."
He said moves to make decision-making easier were essential in a Union of 25 or more countries, adding that failure to make an enlarged EU work would encourage moves towards closer co-operation between France, Germany and other like-minded countries. "This is not a threat. This is a messenger delivering news. It is a debate," he said.
Mr Fischer's remarks came as French newspaper Le Monde reported that the French Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin, and his Foreign Minister, Mr Dominique de Villepin, favoured the creation of a Franco-German union. The paper suggested that such a union could not only involve closer co-operation on education, social affairs and the economy, but could lead to a merging of foreign and defence policies.
Senior German officials are cautious about the proposal and Mr Fischer insisted that Berlin and Paris did not wish to exclude other member-states from their shared European vision. He said that a proposal to enhance the EU's military capability was in the interests of both Europe and the United States.
Washington is concerned that plans to establish an EU military planning headquarters near Brussels could undermine NATO. Mr Fischer played down the plan but insisted that an EU planning capability was necessary. "You have national planning headquarters in Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Greece. I don't believe you'll have another big operational headquarters but we need some planning capacity."