EU:European leaders edged closer to agreeing the EU reform treaty last night despite last-minute reservations expressed by both Poland and Italy on aspects of the deal.
After several hours of talks at an EU summit in Lisbon, diplomats said an agreement on the treaty was tantalisingly close. Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said 99 per cent of the details had been worked out and a deal should be announced today.
"We will have a treaty tomorrow after six years of talking," said Mr Ahern last night.
British prime minister Gordon Brown also dispelled fears that he would raise additional problems with the draft treaty saying it guaranteed British sovereignty.
Agreement on the treaty would end several years of institutional wrangling within the EU about the rules that govern how it takes decisions and implements policy. It would also dispel a "crisis of confidence" felt in many EU capitals about the Dutch and French rejection of the EU constitution in referendums during the summer of 2005.
Agreement on most of the issues contained in the 200-page- plus text had been reached by diplomats from member states prior to the summit. But several potentially tricky areas needed to be addressed by EU leaders to clinch a final deal.
Polish president Lech Kaczynski warned shortly before arriving at the two-day summit that Warsaw would delay the treaty discussions if its demands were not met. "We don't want anything more than is our right," said President Kaczynski, whose ruling Law and Justice party faces an election on Sunday.
Warsaw has set its sights on getting a delaying mechanism, known as the Ioannina Compromise, written into the text of the draft treaty. This enables states that have been narrowly outvoted at the council to delay a decision for a few months. If the mechanism is written into the treaty, it can only be removed in a new treaty revision. Warsaw has also been lobbying to win the right to a permanent legal adviser at the European Court of Justice - a position enjoyed by the EU's five biggest states.
Italy has also raised serious concerns about a proposed redistribution of seats within the European Parliament that would end its traditional parity with Britain and France on the number of MEPs each state is allocated.
"The Italian position is very clear. There is a pact among France, Italy and the UK. We don't see any reason for a change [in] this position," said Italian prime minister Romano Prodi.
But last night a potential deal was being hammered out behind the scenes to satisfy Italian demands. In a proposal from the Portuguese presidency Italy would be awarded an extra MEP, raising the total number in the parliament to 751. But the president of the parliament would not be counted as an MEP to satisfy the demands of the reform treaty, which set a ceiling of 750.
Other potential hurdles that EU leaders addressed included: a Bulgarian demand that the Cyrillic alphabet be used when spelling the word euro in official EU texts; the European Parliament's insistence that it be able to scrutinise member states when they collect personal data for security reasons and to change the date when a potentially powerful new foreign policy post is filled.
One of the core provisions of the treaty is the amalgamation of two existing EU foreign posts, one representing the commission and the other the council, into a single High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The parliament wants to ensure it can scrutinise the person appointed by member states by delaying the appointment until after the European elections in May 2009. But the treaty envisages filling the post in January 2009.