Brussels, 11/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - Italy has agreed to the European arrest warrant but its agreement will be accompanied by a unilateral declaration on the warrant's coming into force in Italy, the contents of which are not yet very clear. Three days ahead of the Laeken European Summit, Berlusconi's government finally caved in to the pressure from its fourteen fellow Member States (which agreed on Thursday to replace the current extradition procedure with the faster European arrest warrant (see EUROPE of 7 December, p.7)). After his meeting with the Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, in Rome on Tuesday, Silvio Berlusconi signalled that Italy would agree to the European arrest warrant set out by the Justice and Home Affairs Council. The unilateral Italian declaration is expected to cover the warrant's entry into force and signal that in order to apply the framework decision on the European arrest warrant, the Italian government will launch internal legal procedures to make the decision compatible with the supreme principles of the Italian constitutional order, the President of the Italian Council told journalists. What will happen if Italian legislation has not been amended by 1 January 2004, the date when the warrant comes into force? Will Italy be able to postpone the warrant coming into force in Italy? Silvio Berlusconi laconically signalled that they would see whether they could do it by 2004 and if they couldn't, it would not be a serious matter.