Polish president proposes delaying decision on EU voting system

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, December 11, 2003

Polish president proposes delaying decision on EU voting system

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Wednesday that his country agrees to postpone a decision on the disputed EU voting system by several years.

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Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski said Wednesday that his country agrees to postpone a decision on the disputed EU voting system by several years.

"If a compromise is possible, I think that it is worthwhile to seek such a compromise," Kwasniewski said in an interview with a Polish radio on Wednesday.

The president stressed, however, that the Polish position on the voting system has not changed and will not change. Postponing the decision is "a chance for Europe to overcome the impasse," he said.

As to how long the postponement would be, Kwasniewski suggested several years, maybe until 2008. He said there might be new opportunities for the bloc by that time.

The voting system is included in a draft EU constitution stipulating a "double majority" system under which many decisions require a majority of states representing 60 percent of the bloc's population.

While countries like Germany and France favor the new system, Spain and Poland would like to keep the current one approved in 2000 according to the Nice Treaty, which gives Poland 27 votes compared to 29 for Germany, whose population is twice as large as that of Poland.

Kwasniewski also described as unacceptable what he called the stubbornness showed by French and German leaders at a meeting on Tuesday in their stance over the voting system.

The new EU constitution is meant to ensure that the organization would function more smoothly after the number of its members increases from 15 to 25 next May, raising its population to 450 million.

The suggestion to postpone the decision on the voting system was originally brought forward by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Nov. 28 in Italy.

The EU plans to hold a summit meeting on Dec. 12-13 to pass the draft constitution, leaving only days for member countries to seek compromises on the disputed voting system.

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