Germany trades to meet states' concerns

Compromises: To meet the concerns of Britain, The Netherlands, Poland and France, the EU presidency tabled various compromises…

Compromises:To meet the concerns of Britain, The Netherlands, Poland and France, the EU presidency tabled various compromises.

Foreign policy: The title of EU foreign minister would be deleted from the new treaty. Instead, the EU foreign policy chief would be called High Representative of the European Union. He/she would combine the jobs of the foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who reports to EU governments, and Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who controls the aid budget and external relations staff. They would chair meetings of EU foreign ministers and head an external action service drawing on national and EU diplomats.

Justice opt-out: A compromise was drafted to meet British concerns that its common law system could be undermined. Britain would be able to opt in to new EU justice proposals it supported, but withdraw from those it did not agree with. Ireland will also be offered the compromise, but will probably not decide to accept it until an intergovernmental conference in the autumn.

Charter of Fundamental Rights: British concerns that the charter could interfere with its domestic laws by extending the right to strike to workers may be addressed by a protocol declaring that the European Court cannot rule on British domestic cases.

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Dutch concerns: The German presidency offered national parliaments extra time to scrutinise legislative proposals made by the European Commission.

Voting system: Compromises were circulated to the Polish delegation to meet their concerns about the loss of voting weight. Late last night they were offered the ability to retain the existing voting system under the "Nice Treaty" until 2014. Under the "Ioannina Compromise", smaller EU states would also be able to delay unfavourable decisions. Poland was also offered extra MEPs.

Free market principles: In a sop to France it was agreed to remove a phrase referring to "free and undistorted competition" in the operation of the single European market.