Brussels, 22/12/2000 (Agence Europe) - After several hours of deliberations, Thursday evening, the Permanent Representatives of EU Member States parted having decided to consult their capitals on the interpretation to give to certain parts of the provisional text of the Treaty of Nice proposed to them by the French Presidency so as, in particular, to iron out the contradictions observed in the text regarding the threshold for a qualified majority and the number of minority blocking votes. Several Permanent Representatives considered that their brief was not broad enough to be able to recommend acceptance of these modifications without consulting their governments, and some of them even demonstrated reluctance (Spain, notably, and, for different reasons, Sweden and Finland). The French Presidency considered its work to be over, and hoped that the governments of the Member States would react swiftly, before Christmas if possible, so that the legal and language experts could shape the Treaty for its signing.
The main question to be clarified was that, thought settled in Nice in the early hours of Monday morning 11 December, of the re-weighting of votes. The incoherence of the text stemmed mainly from the fact that, in the last hours of negotiations, the number of votes of the "large" countries had been reduced from 30 to 29, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt having secured two extra votes for Lithuania and one more for Romania, without account being taken of the figures for the threshold for a qualified majority or a minority block. Thursday, the Committee of Permanent Representatives tried to iron out the contradictions observed in Article 3 of the Protocol on enlargement and in the declaration annexed to the Treaty. Thus:
(May we remind you that the weighting of votes agreed in Nice for a Europe of 27 is as follows: - Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, 29 votes; - Spain and Poland 27 votes; - Romania 14 votes; - the Netherlands 13 votes; - Belgium, Greece, Portugal, Hungary and the Czech Republic 12 votes; - Austria, Sweden and Bulgaria, 10 votes; - Denmark, Ireland, Finland, Slovakia and Lithuania 7 votes; - Luxembourg, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus, 4 votes; - Malta, 3 votes).
The Committee of Permanent representatives, moreover, confirmed the distribution of seats in the European Parliament in an enlarged Union: here too, there were last minute corrections in Nice, as, having increased the number of Belgian members from 20 to 22, the European Council did likewise for Portugal and Greece, which refused to be "unhooked" from Belgium - which led to strong reactions on the part of certain MEPs for whom Hungary and the Czech Republic, due to their populations, should also have 22 seats in the EP instead of 20. (You may recall that, according to the Declaration annexed to the Final Act, the EP would have 732 seats, spread as follows: Germany 99; - United Kingdom, France and Italy 72; - Spain and Poland 50; - Romania 33; - the Netherlands 25; - Belgium, Greece and Portugal 22; Czech Republic and Hungary 20; - Sweden 18; - Austria and Bulgaria 17; - Denmark, Finland and Slovakia 13; - Ireland and Lithuania 12; - Latvia 8; - Slovenia 7; - Luxembourg, Estonia and Cyprus 6; - Malta 5).
Furthermore, the compromise proposed by the French Presidency states that, from 2002, one European Council per presidency shall be held in Brussels (the Nice text said that "half" the European Councils would be held in Brussels), while making room for a certain amount of flexibility, and that, from a Union of 18 members, all Council meetings will be held in Brussels. Spain, which will assume the presidency of the EU in the first half of 2002, had already scheduled two summits, one in Seville and the other in Barcelona and had insisted on this flexibility.
Another correction, considered "technical" and proposed by the Presidency, poses problems for Spain (as well as Portugal and Greece). It is the correction that aims to eliminate the time reference "2007-2013" in Article 161 on the passage regarding qualified majority voting for decisions relating to Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. The article stipulated that, from 1 January 2007 on, the Council would deliberate on these matters by qualified majority vote if the 2007-2013 financial perspectives have been adopted by that date, whereas, if they have not, qualified majority vote will only be applied once they have been adopted.