THIS WILL LEAD TO THE EU PRESIDENT TO LEAD THE EU FOR THE FINAL 7 YEAR PEACE TREATY BETWEEN THE EU GUARENTEEING ISRAELS SECURITY FOR LAND WITH ARABS AND MANY.
EU leaders agree on foreign chief By Yves Clarisse and Niclas Mika
Fri Jun 22, 11:35 AM ET
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union leaders reached broad agreement on Friday on a single post to run EU foreign affairs, the first success at a summit on the bloc's future, but Poland held up progress towards a treaty to reform the Union. The leaders of the 27 member states agreed on the job title, role and powers of a High Representative of the European Union for foreign policy, defense and security, diplomats said.The post will combine the jobs of foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who does mostly crisis management, and External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who controls the executive European Commission's aid budget.
The new foreign policy chief would chair meetings of EU foreign ministers and head a combined external action service drawing on both national and EU diplomats, after Britain dropped its reservations on those points, the diplomats said.
The provisional accord was reached on the second day of a crucial summit meant to launch negotiations on a treaty to reform the bloc's institutions, replacing the defunct EU constitution and helping the bloc face up to global challenges.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, hosting the summit, struggled to break Poland's resistance to planned changes to the bloc's voting system which Warsaw says would favor member states with larger populations and reduce its own influence.Merkel met Polish President Lech Kaczynski three times in 12 hours to try to ease his concerns.
We're working hard. The problems are not yet solved but everyone is trying, said Merkel, who also met the leaders of the other states with concerns over the treaty Britain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.Finnish President Tarja Halonen said she sensed progress.I would say the atmosphere was today better...I am more optimistic now than I was this morning, she told reporters.Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said a lot of hard talking lay ahead: I still believe in an agreement but it will be a long negotiation.
WAR SUFFERING
Acrimony grew over Poland's repeated references to its suffering at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War Two to justify its opposition to the voting system. It says it would have a larger population were it not for heavy wartime losses.But Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the president's twin brother, was unapologetic.This is simply the truth. This is not about settling accounts with the Germans. This is about making people aware about a certain moral situation, he told reporters in Warsaw.
He reiterated that Poland would consider other options if there was no agreement on its proposal on EU voting rules.Backers of reform say a revamp of the EU's complex decision-making structures is needed for further enlargement of the bloc and to tackle challenges such as climate change.They say it will provide clear leadership, a stronger voice for the EU in the world and more say for European and national parliaments. Critics fear a dilution of national sovereignty. The treaty plan was salvaged from the EU constitution that was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.
Failure at the summit would deepen divisions in the Union. It could prompt a small group of states to press ahead with closer integration, leaving others behind, and make richer west European countries more reluctant to aid poorer newcomers.
POLAND ISOLATEDOVER VOTING SYSTEM
Nearly all the EU states favor a double majority voting formula requiring 55 percent of member states representing 65 percent of the EU population to pass decisions.
Poland has proposed an alternative under which voting power would be based on the square root of each country's population. This would favor smaller states rather than larger ones. A spokesman for French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he made a proposal based on the so-called Ioannina Compromise giving states just short of a blocking minority an emergency brake to postpone decisions and force more negotiations.
But EU diplomats said Lech Kaczynski wanted those measures further tightened and proposed that existing voting rules be maintained until 2014 at least and ideally through to 2020. Poland also sought pledges that EU countries would help each other in the event of energy supply crunches, a major concern given the bloc's dependence on Russian oil and gas imports. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the other leader who could scupper a deal, has said Britain will sign up to a treaty only if a list of demands are met. But other leaders say he has
struck a conciliatory tone at his final EU summit.
Eighteen EU nations ratified the constitutional treaty, but even they accept it must be cut to allow France, the Netherlands and Britain to avoid referendums their governments might lose. Yet some key institutional changes are set to be kept, such as creating a president of the European Council of governments elected for 2-1/2 years instead of the current six-month rotating presidency which has grown unwieldy in the enlarged EU.
