EU CONVENTION: The Convention on the Future of Europe remains deadlocked over the reform of EU institutions following a day of consultations between its members and its president, Mr Valery Giscard d'Estaing, writes Denis Staunton in Brussels
Mr Giscard held separate meetings with the convention's three main components - national parliamentarians, MEPs and government representatives. But all three groups rejected his blueprint for reform which would create a new post of president of the European Council, reduce the size of the Commission and change the way a qualified majority is calculated.
Three quarters of the government representatives said they would not affect any change in the deal on representation in the institutions agreed at Nice. This deal governs the weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers and the division of seats in the European Parliament and guarantees one commissioner per member-state until the EU has 27 members.
The Government's representative, Mr Dick Roche, said that, with nine working days left for the convention, there was no sign that Mr Giscard had a compromise in mind.
"He hasn't got an alternative set of proposals. I think today's experience may have been a salutary one," he said.
Ireland's representative on the convention's praesidium, Mr John Bruton, said that the original plan was for the praesidium to present new proposals to the convention today. But he expressed doubt as to whether it would be possible to devise a compromise plan overnight. "The discussion has been so contradictory to what some people want that I think it will be very difficult," he said.
Mr Giscard said that, despite the disagreements, he was confident that the convention would succeed in presenting a single text to EU leaders at a summit in Greece later this month. He said that he was looking at broadening the number of issues where national vetoes would be abolished.
The Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, renewed his criticism of the national veto in a speech yesterday to the European Parliament, saying that it "can only bring deadlock in the Union".
The Munster MEP, Mr John Cushnahan, said that the deadlock was due to an attempt to shift power from small to large states. "To prevent this happening, the current institutional balance must be retained, particularly by strengthening the role of the both the Commission and the European Parliament," he said.