THE EU: The European Union's Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Mr Pedro Solbes, said yesterday that EU finance ministers should stand tough on France and Germany over their breaches of the Stability Pact.
"I urge the finance ministers to back our recommendations at the Ecofin meeting next week and not to search for a political compromise around the problems of the two big nations," he told Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.
The Commission wants the ministers to oblige France and Germany to meet the pact's 3 per cent deficit-to-GDP target in 2005 and to take some saving measures in 2004.
Mr Solbes also said the failure to respect the Stability Pact by the euro zone's current members was setting a bad example for new EU members from eastern Europe, some of whom struggle to curb their budget deficits.
"I fully agree ... that current euro zone members should give good example to future euro zone members," he was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Mr Silvio Berlusconi tested the ground for a possible compromise with Poland over the draft EU constitution as the deadline to wrap up negotiations on it nears.
Mr Berlusconi, who was also in Warsaw, met President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Prime Minister Leszek Miller to discuss their opposition to key provisions of the proposed EU charter, especially voting rights.
"We will work to reach a compromise. There are differences now, but I am confident we will find a mutually acceptable solution," he told a news conference.
Current EU president Italy wants to conclude talks on the final text of the new rule book by the end of the year, to enable the EU to function smoothly when it expands next May, to 25 from 15 members. "Berlusconi tested what could be acceptable for Poland, whether there are any trade-offs involved. He stressed the need for a compromise," said a diplomat.
Next week Italy is expected to present a compromise package of changes to the draft charter, which was proposed in June by a convention headed by former French president Mr Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. The biggest dispute pits Germany and France, who back a new voting system for the EU, against newcomer Poland and its ally Spain, who want to retain the favourable voting formula enshrined in the 2000 Nice Treaty.
"There is plenty of room for compromise. We are on a good track," said the Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
The Nice voting formula gives Poland and Spain each 27 votes in the intergovernmental arm of the EU, the Council of Ministers, just two behind the far larger Germany.
"The only compromise we can accept is keeping the Nice system while agreeing to meet at some point in the future and discuss if changes are needed," said Mr Dariusz Szymczycha, the Polish president's top adviser. - (Reuters)