Blair may try to weaken Franco-German power axis
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac said yesterday the final text of the European Constitution should be tied closely with the wording of the current draft.
Mr Chirac said agreement on the EU constitution ought to be reached.
Sharing similar sentiments, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he wanted to see an agreement reached this weekend.
Chancellor Schroeder said he was optimistic the summit of European leaders in Brussels this week would be a success.
The Intergovernmental Conference begins on Friday in Brussels.
But Tony Blair may try to weaken the Franco-German power axis by challenging the draft’s provisions for voting rights in the European Commission.
The current draft says a country’s voting rights should be closely linked to its population.
Mr Blair is likely to back Spain’s and future EU member Poland’s stance over the political weighting of an enlarged EU, which soon will have 25 members. The countries say they will not allow their voting power to be watered down.
At the Nice summit in December 2000, Spain and Poland were provisionally granted voting weights disproportionate to the size of their populations.
But France and Germany now want them to accept a revision of their voting weights.
Mr Blair is likely to share a trilateral summit with France and Germany ahead of the IGC.
