Belka presents his latest ideas for the EU voting system at Brussles summit

The Polish government has new ideas concerning the EU constitution. During the first day of the latest EU summit in Brussels, Marek Belka presented a new proposal on the voting system, similar to the Nice Treaty. Belka proposed that bills should be passed only with the consent of member countries representing two-thirds of EU citizens. He also suggested that if a group of countries representing 30% of citizens opposed a bill, then the decision should be postponed to provide more time for discussion. Polish diplomats are aware that Poland would have 28% of votes, which be just 2% short of giving it the power of veto. There is a chance for a compromise on the voting system, but there are no such chances concerning the preamble to the Constitution, where Poland desperately wants to include a reference to Christian values. However, even Ireland believes the chances for this are very low and appears unwilling to back it. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, A7) D.W.