INTER-GOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE: PRESIDENCY TABLES GLOBAL PACKAGE ON THE ENTIRE CONSTITUTION.

The global document presented by the Presidency, which was not yet available as European Report went to press, should include on the one hand technical and legal adaptations finalised by the group of experts chaired by the Council's Legal Advisor Jean-Claude Piris, which was charged with window-dressing the text presented by the European Convention, and on the other draft amendments, notably concerning articles that have already been the object of amendments, several of which are to be reformulated in the light of debates at the Naples Ministerial conclave (see European Report 2825 for further details). Regarding the principal institutional points, the Presidency is expected to stick to draft compromises discussed at the conclave but would appear bound to hold firm on the double majority voting system of half the Member States representing 60% of the EU population. In this perspective, the possibility of deferring application of the system until 2014 is being raised with some insistence in Community circles, as is likely to be the case with proposals for a restricted composition of the College, i.e. one Commissioner per Member State until 2014, when the Commission would count a number of Commissioners equivalent to two thirds of Member States.

Whatever the case, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini took the opportunity on December 8 to reiterate his warning of December 5 to former Convention members (see European Report 2826 for further details): "Either there is a good Treaty or there is no Treaty", he reaffirmed, definitively ruling out any "cheap compromise", even insisting that if no settlement is reached, "Italy will not alter its stance under the Irish Presidency". Spain and Poland do not seem impressed by the Presidency's determination and are sticking to the elaboration of a system based on vote weighting in the Nice Treaty, which nevertheless grants them an "unfair advantage", according to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Another factor in this tense context is that Poland's delegation for this final phase of the IGC may be complicated by the fact that Prime Minister Leszek Miller is in hospital following a serious helicopter accident on December 5, and therefore risks suffering physically in what promise to be protracted...