Brussels, 12/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - The debate to be held by the foreign affairs ministers, in Luxembourg on Monday 15 October, on the text of the treaty agreed on 2 October by the legal experts of the member states, will be crucial, but certainly not definitive. Crucial because it will be one of the last opportunities for any country which wishes to do so to put (back) on the table of the IGC any concerns not covered by the mandate of the European Council of June. Not definitive because, unsurprisingly, it will be the heads of state government who will have the last word, in Lisbon on 18-19 October; each of them, obviously, retains the right to make new demands at any moment, until there is consensus on the final text. On Friday, the Portuguese presidency said that it was “reasonably optimistic” that the new treaty could be approved in Lisbon.
According to Portuguese sources, only Poland has at this stage officially indicated to the presidency that it intends to call for changes to be made to the text approved by the legal experts. Warsaw wants to reinforce the “Ioannina clause” (on qualified majority voting in the Council), by incorporating it either in the treaty itself, or in a protocol annexed to the treaty. Most of the other member states are opposed to this, but the question will most likely be resolved at the last minute. The presidency also suspects that the issue of the division of seats in the European Parliament after 2009 may complicate matters, even though, legally speaking, the decision on the treaty will not be taken by the IGC, but by a simple decision of the Council. The Italian government has stated that the proposal made by the European Parliament on Thursday (EUROPE 9521) was “unacceptable”; but Rome (which wants the number of seats to be calculated on the basis of the “citizens” of each member state and not its inhabitants) has also stated that this problem will not block the IGC. Quite the contrary - it hopes that the question of seats will not be decided upon until after the treaty has been concluded. It remains to be seen whether any of the others are waiting for the Lisbon summit to pull any new demands out of the bag. The Czech Republic may do so. The text of the legal experts is “close to a reasonable compromise”, but “political negotiations will continue in Lisbon”, the Czech deputy prime minister, Alexandr Vondra, told EUROPE on Friday, going on to add: “the Czech Republic can still see a possibility of improving the text”. (hb)