Paris, 27/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - In a speech he made (in French) at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar reaffirmed the priority Spain gave, in ongoing negotiations on the review of the EU Treaty, to a re-weighting of votes in Council that provided Spain with "a weight in accordance with its demographic size". Calling for "the balances that have deteriorated in successive enlargements to be reestablished", Aznar said he was convinced that the "reorganisation of the Commission will be easy and swift" if the principle was accepted by which the renunciation (by the larger Member States) of a second Commissioner were compensated by an "adequate weighting of votes" in Council. In the debate that followed his speech, the Spanish Prime Minister exclaimed: "We may ask large countries to agree to having a single Commissioner, but we cannot ask them to renounce everything. It would be unthinkable that the larger countries (…) should not have the guarantee of having one Commissioner" (whereas other "larger" countries have agreed that, in a European Eommission with fewer Commissioners than Member States, a system of rotation on an equal footing should be applied: Ed.). Furthermore, while coming down in favour of a "strong" Commission, Mr. Aznar hoped for a "strengthening of intergovernmental bodies, rampart of Nation-States".
As for enlargement, Mr. Aznar considered that two or three candidates could join "around 2005", but that setting dates would be a "disaster" ("It is not the Normandy landing!", he commented).