Clever courting

Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga last week said Poland will try to reform the European Union's top court to get experts from new EU member states more senior posts. The move could further complicate talks on the bloc's new treaty, due to be signed later this year.

"Five out of eight posts of advocates general are taken by big member states, whose interests are not always in line with ours," Fotyga said. "We are keen on having a bigger number of them ... Following [the EU's] enlargement there has not been an increase in the number of advocates general," she added, speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Brussels.

Advocates general offer opinions on cases before the increasingly powerful Luxembourg-based court. In the majority of cases the final judgments follow those opinions. The EU's founding Treaty of Rome says that "the judges and advocates general of the Court of Justice shall be chosen from persons whose independence is beyond doubt ..." The number of advocates general is regulated by the EU treaty.

Fotyga said Poland would raise the court issue at negotiations involving EU governments on a new treaty for the bloc on how to reform its institutions after its recent and rapid enlargement.

EU leaders agreed on a draft of the treaty in June but the tough stances of Poland and of Britain have complicated negotiations. Portugal, the holder of the EU's rotating presidency, said the signing of the treaty may be delayed until December because of the threat of early elections in Poland. (Reuters)