Poettering warns Poland to leave EU vote system alone
European Parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering has warned Poland to leave the voting rights issue alone when EU member states consider how to move ahead on the EU constitution.
Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday (6 March), he stressed that the European Parliament would oppose any move to change the decision-making process when negotiating the new EU treaty.
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"If there is one country that wants to change the decision-making process in the council, there will be a very, very strong opposition from the European Parliament and – I think – from most of the member states as well."
Poland, which became an EU member in 2004, has long been hostile to the "double majority" voting system in the draft constitution.
The double majority system requires a majority of both the 27 EU states and of their total populations for EU laws to pass.
The constitutional treaty proposes that a decision should be taken when supported by 55 percent of member states representing 65 percent of the EU population.
The system is strongly supported by Germany – the country with the biggest population in the EU. But Poland has in the past firmly insisted that the voting weights thrashed out at a previous EU summit in Nice should be maintained.
The Nice treaty voting weights give Poland almost as much voting power as Germany - which has twice as big a population.
Energy solidarity
Mr Poettering said that the issue of voting rights could have an impact on Warsaw's demand for energy solidarity to be included in the constitution.
"If the Russians should stop energy supply to Poland – oil or gas – then this is not only a case for Poland…it is something for the whole European Union," he said.
He explained that the European Union is based on solidarity and the relationship between the 27 countries of the European Union always has to have priority to bilateral relations of a member state with a third country.
"I will always defend this Polish right to ask for this solidarity," Mr Poettering said, but added that "solidarity is never a one-way road."
"If our Polish partners and friends would like to change the voting system – the double majority – and would veto the whole procedure in the end then they would give up their own right for solidarity with the other [member states]," he pointed out.
"Europe is very complex, it's very complicated, and if somebody wants to get 100 percent then we all lose together, because we cannot have 100 percent for everyone," Mr Poettering explained.
'Change title not substance'
Mr Poettering's comments were part of a longer speech about the European Parliament and the EU political agenda delivered at the Brussels-based think-tank CEPS on Tuesday.
He reiterated the parliament's stand on the constitution, saying he hoped EU states would have ratified the new constitution before the European Parliament elections in June 2009.
But Mr Poettering – who has held the top parliament post since January this year and been an MEP since 1979 - stressed that the essence of the current draft treaty should be kept intact.
"We can find ways to make it more concentrated but we have to keep the substance and we don't want to change the decision-making process," he said, adding it could be called something else as some governments might easier be able to adopt the text if the word "constitution" was taken out of the title.
"It is more important to keep the substance than the title," Mr Poettering stated.