The EU faces months of divisive wrangling over its first ever constitution after EU leaders starkly failed this weekend to hide their differences on key issues -- crucially centred on who holds the bloc's reins of power.
Even the EU's Italian EU presidency acknowledged that the negotiations on a first-ever constitution -- which it wants to enshrine in new Treaty of Rome to echo the group's 1957 founding text -- may continue beyond a December deadline.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"I admit that a very difficult task awaits us, we only have a little over 60 days to do a lot of work. But on other occasions Europe has completed such work," said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Launching an intergovernmental conference, Berlusconi vowed to pull out all the stops to secure accord on a constitutional treaty, which would mark an unprecedented step for the 46-year-old union.
The constitution would enforce a total shake-up of the EU's creaking institutional architecture, as it expands from 15 member countries to 25 and beyond in the next few years.
Key reforms would include a new EU president to replace the musical chairs of the current unwieldy six-month rotating presidency system; a slimmed-down EU executive commission, a new EU foreign minister and re-assessed voting rights.
And voting rights is already shaping up as a central stumbling block. Specifically, medium-sized countries such as Spain, already a member, and Poland, which is due to join the EU next year, are vowing to stand firm against proposals to remove beneficial voting rights they secured under the Nice Treaty, which gave them 27 votes each compared to 29 for Germany which is nearly twice the size of either of them.
The Nice accord, secured in December 2000 after marathon talks in the southern French city, was widely seen at the time as at best an institutional stop-gap and at worst a shambles. But falling back on Nice may be the only option unless Madrid and Warsaw move.
"If we come to the point of decision and certain states oppose changing the voting system adopted in Nice, these states will take political responsibility for blocking an accord," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.
The starting point for the talks will be a draft constitution drawn up over 16 months by a convention chaired by former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing.
Although all countries have individual positions on each issue, a number of camps have developed in the constitutional debate.
The EU's six founders -- Germany, France, Italy and the three Benelux states -- want as little tinkering as possible with the Giscard draft; a group of 15 smaller countries opposes plans which could bolster the traditional heavyweight's dominance, while Britain is vowing to veto anything which would remove its control over key policy areas such as tax and foreign affairs.
At their Saturday summit the EU leaders trumpeted that a new constitution will be a "vital step in the process aimed at making Europe more cohesive, more transparent and democratic."
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw rebuffed suggestions that talks on the text could fail to bridge differences.
"I'm not contemplating failure here," he said.
French President Jacques Chi-rac warned bluntly that the EU would tinker with the Giscard draft at its peril.
"To contest this or that element of the compromise would inevitably open a Pandora's box and could lead to the failure of the intergovernmental conference," he said.
Perhaps one of the most honest comments was made by new Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds, who has only just replaced the late Anna Lindh.
"It will not end in December," she said, forecasting that the showdown is likely to come in March, half way through the next, Irish, EU presidency.
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