EU POLITICAL leaders failed early this morning to agree on key institutional changes long regarded as necessary to prepare the EU for enlargement.
A plan to increase the voting power of the largest EU states in exchange for guaranteeing smaller states the right to continue to nominate an EU commissioner was unexpectedly dropped from the final draft treaty.
Meanwhile as the Amsterdam summit continued into the early hours this morning, there were reports that proposals to remove the national veto from decision making on a number of policy areas had been blocked by the German Chancellor, Dr Kohl.
The failure to reach agreement on these key institutional reforms came despite their consideration at the EU's Inter-Governmental Conference since March 1996. As central and eastern European states queued up to join, the EU leaders had agreed that it was imperative to reform its decision making procedures first to ensure the EU would be able to cope with a large membership.
However faced with a specific proposal from the Dutch Presidency of the EU, a number of states, including Spain, Belgium and Luxembourg, objected to the planned "reweighting" of votes on the grounds that it would have unduly reduced their influence in the EU Council of Ministers.
At present, when the Council of Ministers is making majority decisions, each member state has a certain number of votes based on the size of its population. Thus, for example, Germany, France, the UK and Italy have 10 votes each, while Ireland and Denmark have three each and Luxembourg has two.
The large member states argue that they are still seriously under represented, and run the risk of being outvoted by smaller states if the EU takes in new members. The Dutch presidency proposal, tabled yesterday, would have given Germany, France, the UK and Italy 25 votes each, Ireland and Denmark six and Luxembourg three.
Enough member states objected to their proposed new strength early this morning to wreck chances of agreement on this issue. It may not now be considered until the EU has begun to take in new members. It may be at least as difficult to reach agreement at that stage.
In the meantime, however, smaller member states such as Ireland are still guaranteed their right to nominate a member of the European Commission, a right that Ireland is determined not to lose. However, according to an agreement reached last night, once more than two new states have joined the EU, that right will be conditional on an agreement on the reweighting of votes.
The package of EU institutional reforms is considered vital if the EU is to enlarge to take in central and eastern European states. The EU's decision making procedures are already cumbersome, and it is widely believed that they would grind to a halt unless simplified in advance of enlargement.
The EU leaders were also arguing last night over removing the national veto from a number of areas of policy. While member states generally agree on the introduction of more majority voting, there is hot dispute over which issues should be decided by majority.
Certain reforms to other EU institutions proved less contentious last night. The leaders were expected to agree that the nomination of the President of the European Commission will have to be ratified by the European Parliament. In addition, member states will have to agree their nominees to the Commission with the Commission President.
The European Parliament's role in decision-making is to be enhanced and its procedures simplified, but the changes fall short of what the parliament itself wanted, and the parliament is still not allowed to initiate legislation.
The codecision procedure - under which the parliament shares legislative authority with the Council of Ministers - will be extended to cover a number of new issues.
These include social policy, structural and cohesion funding, freedom of movement issues, aspects of transport and environment policy and development co-operation.
The future size of the European Parliament will be limited to a ceiling of 700. This is to prevent it reaching an unworkable size when new states join the EU.