Brussels, 14/10/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 14 October 2009, representatives of the EU Member States to the European Union examined the two outstanding issues in relation to the setting up of a European Crisis Management Committee (CERS), namely vote weighting on the CERS' general council and the composition of the management committee that will prepare for the general council's work (see EUROPE 9997). The Swedish Presidency has developped a compromise deal whereby the CERS would decide on alerts on a simple majority voting basis and on recommendations by qualified majority voting (two-thirds of the votes), and this is being backed by most Member States. Germany, however, will not countenance anything other than qmv and is backed in this by Spain. France is reported to prefer qmv also. Whether simple majority voting or qmv, Poland wants the same system to apply to both. The United Kingdom says it is flexible and insists that the microeconomic and macroeconomic areas of the legislative package should be linked up in order to ensure there is room for further bargaining in the future. The Swedish Presidency says it hopes to be able to progress to the Tuesday 20 October 2009 ECOFIN Council without having to examine the issue. As for the composition of the management committee that would be responsible for preparing for the CERS' general council's work, Member States are reported to back the European Commission's idea of it comprising five central bankers and the general council's chair and vice-chair. This would avoid the danger of the recipients of CERS alerts forming the majority on the management committee. (M.B. trans fl)