All the European Union (EU) leaders who are attending an informal summit in Lisbon have expressed their wish to reach agreement on the landmark Reform Treaty Thursday night, Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado said Thursday.
"All the delegations ... have expressed their strong commitment to have an agreement tonight," said Amado, whose country holds the EU presidency, after the leaders had had their working dinner and started discussion behind the doors.
The draft Reform Treaty, which is to replace the constitutional treaty vetoed by French and Dutch voters in 2005, will put in place sweeping changes to transform the EU's clumsy institutions and simplify the decision-making.
An agreement on the treaty, the most important EU document following the 2001 Nice Treaty, will finally wind up six years of debate over the 27-nation bloc's institutional reform.
"Despite the considerations of some difficulties we still face, the political will is there, and a strong wish to turn the page at this (meeting) have been expressed by all the delegations," Amado said.
The new treaty text, prepared by the Intergovernmental Conference after EU leaders clinched a framework deal on the treaty in June, have largely retained the substance of the original constitution.
While scrapping all reference to EU symbols including the title "constitution", the treaty provides for the posts of a permanent president of the European council and a EU high representative for foreign and security policy.
It also introduces double majority rule in decision-making, reduces the size of the executive European Commission, and gives national parliaments more power.
Poland, the Czech Republic and Italy still have complaints with the new draft treaty, which Amado said will be dealt with during the next few hours.
"We already began to work bilaterally with the delegations which raised the most difficult issues," he said, adding that throughout the night they "will work intensively" and hope to "present concrete solutions to all these outstanding issues."
Poland, which holds elections on Oct. 21, wants a future EU voting mechanism that would allow EU decisions to be put off for some time when a minority of member nations disagree.
Poland, which claims that the new treaty would give bigger member states more power than before, said the decision-blocking mechanism, or the Ioannina clause, should be written into the treaty, instead of in a declaration which has no legal standing.
While acknowledging that the Ioannina issue is "complicated," Amado said he believed the EU leaders "can deal with it tonight."
Poland also want the European Court of Justice to include one more general advocate from Poland. "In the end we will have a solution for that," said the foreign minister.
Italy disagrees with the plan to redistribute EU parliamentary seats. According to the new rules, Rome's seats should be cut from78 to 72 in 2009, the biggest decline among member states.
Striking a more positive note, Amado said the issues raised by Bulgaria and Austria, regarding the spelling of the euro and limits on foreign students respectively, have been settled.
If all goes as expected, the leaders will conclude discussions on the treaty Thursday night and discuss the new challenges of globalization and the EU's response to them on Friday, he said.
Source: Xinhua
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