Poland remains at loggerheads with main EU members over key issues

The temperature before Intergovernmental Conference in Rome scheduled for early October, which will decide on the final shape of the European Union Constitution is hotting up. Poland is one of the countries which continues to express reservations against the planned changes. Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski will raise the various issues on his visit to Italy today, while the Prime Minister will do the same on Monday in Germany. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer announced that if accepting the Constitution was blocked, than EU core countries would tighten their internal co-operation within the Union, at the cost of new members. European Affairs Minister Danuta Huebner criticized such plans in an interview given to Reuters. The most important demands of the Polish government are keeping the existing voting power of Poland, introducing an invocation to the Christian roots of Europe into the Constitution preamble, blocking the possible creation of a competitive EU military force to NATO, and allowing all EU states to have a Commissioner in the European Commission. (Rzeczpospolita, pp. A1, A3) M.M.