Brussels, 20/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - The finalisation of the text of the Treaty of Nice raises some difficulties, mainly concerning the future qualified majority voting (and resulting "minority blocking") based on the new breakdown of votes within the Council. The new weighting will take effect in January 2005, although no candidate country has yet adhered to this, and the declaration included in Annex III affirms that qualified majority will correspond to a percentage of votes lower than the current percentage. Calculations show that, in reality, the number of votes needed gives a percentage higher than at present, so that decisions, even in the 15-member Europe, would be made more difficult from 2005 on instead of being facilitated as the "declaration" states, to be included in the Final Act of the IGC. This anomaly should be eliminated, but it seems that any necessary final touches, however minor, would meet with opposition from some Member States for reasons essentially related to the number of countries indispensable for forming "minority blocking". On Wednesday morning, Coreper noted this situation. During the afternoon, the French Presidency presented a draft compromise inviting all delegations to react after having consulted their respective capitals. The work of Coreper will continue on Thursday afternoon and some observers do not rule out the fact that it may be necessary to take the matter to the highest political level. Other reservations concern the declaration on the place for holding the European Council, providing for gradual transfer to Brussels of all meetings. It would seem that some delegations challenge the fact that an agreement was reached in Nice on this subject. A solution could be facilitated by the fact that the "declaration" speaks of European Councils, hence formal sessions, while it only mentions informal summits that could therefore be held elsewhere than in Brussels.