Brussels, 09/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - The prime ministers of the four Visegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia) will hold their next summit on 1 October at Dobris Castle near Prague. The meeting will focus on preparing for the Intergovernmental Conference scheduled to being on 4 October, and will be preceded by liaison between the four countries' foreign ministers.
Romanian prime minister Adrian Nastase, visiting Paris this week, said that the Convention's draft Treaty was acceptable to Romania and the IGC should not attempt to made "spectacular amendments" to the text, although a handful of ambiguous areas had to be eliminated. In an interview with Le Figaro, he said the draft Constitution was a good draft that posed no problems for Romania. He said everyone was entitled, of course, to propose alternatives but in his view this would be counter-productive. It would be damaging to extend the debate because rather than encouraging unity and a European identity, it would create new wounds that would be difficult to heal. Nastase said Spain's and Poland's suggestion that the Nice Treaty measures be kept for decision-making (breakdown of votes on Council) were highly respectable but not very pragmatic.