Brussels, 27/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - The informal meeting of the IGC Preparatory Group, at Val Duchesse on Friday and Saturday, confirmed that many Member States have difficulties in agreeing to the extension of qualified majority voting in a series of important policies like asylum and immigration (but there, it seems that support could be found in Nice in the form of a declaration), tax, social policy (especially, London and Copenhagen, which have problems, but for different reasons), trade policy (diplomatic sources point out that France is not isolated, and that reservations are shared by 7 or 8 delegations) and citizenship (which especially raises problems for the British). This week will be devoted to bilateral negotiations, and then another conclave is scheduled for Sunday 3 December in Brussels, before the last Intergovernmental Conference at ministerial level, also in Brussels on 4 December. On that occasion, the Presidency is said in particular to intend completing negotiations on enhanced cooperation, so as to keep the more controversial issues for the Summit. On that subject, the latest meeting of the Vimont Group demonstrated that:
- A majority of Member States now seem ready to rally around the idea of a deferred ceiling for the European Commission, whereas a minority of Member States (including Portugal, Ireland and Sweden) do not agree with this yet. As for the date from which the Commission could have fewer Commissioners than Member States, and as to the number of Commissioners to envisage for this reduced Commission, a majority of Member States are said to be in favour of starting with the new system in 2010, with 20 Commissioners.
- A majority of Member States are said to be in favour of a re-weighting of votes in Council rather than introducing a dual majority (that a minority of Member States continue to prefer, or are more or less prepared to accept). There are three models on the table still; - a "substantial" re-weighting: the Italian model, by which the four large Member States would have 33 votes each, Spain, Portugal and Poland 26 and the smallest 3 each (which would mean, the minority block being 97, three "large" Member States would be sufficient to secure it); - a "moderate" re-weighting: a variation on the Swedish model, by which the square root of the number of inhabitants of Member states is calculated and the number of votes for each Member State is obtained by multiplying that figure by two; - a "weak: re-weighting of votes. One problem that will doubtless to resolved at the end of negotiations is that of the number of votes for Germany: should Germany secure more votes in relation to the other "large" Member States there risks in particular creating difficulties with countries like Spain and the Netherlands, which would like to see their weight in Council reassessed.
