BELGIUM: British Prime Minister Tony Blair gives update on EU summit progress, French spokesman says EU leaders reached 'moment of truth'

Record ID: 777641

  • Title: BELGIUM: British Prime Minister Tony Blair gives update on EU summit progress, French spokesman says EU leaders reached 'moment of truth'
  • Date: 23rd June 2007
  • Summary: REPORTERS VARIOUS OF JOURNALISTS AT WORK JOURNALIST HOLDING PEN
  • Embargoed: 8th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Belgium
  • Country: Belgium
  • Topics: European Union
  • Reuters ID: LVA9X3V10UHVVAMBUMQ4VCWG2AO6
  • Story Text: British Prime Minister Tony Blair gives update on EU summit progress, French spokesman says EU leaders reached 'moment of truth'. A dispute over the place of competition policy in a European Union reform treaty was resolved at a summit on Friday (June 22) after free-marketeers reached an agreement with France.
    The row began when French President Nicolas Sarkozy persuaded the German EU presidency to remove mention of the principle of "free and undistorted" competition from the objectives of the Union in a mandate for a new treaty, raising concern among practitioners about the legal implications.
    "There has also been an issue over the question of competition and the internal market. France objected to one part of the constitutional treaty that expressed as a value of the European Union that we should have free and undistorted competition. That, then immediately raised the issue, were we undermining competition of the internal market. That has been resolved because people have agreed a protocol that makes it clear that the legal basis of the internal market remains as it already is," British Prime Minister Tony Blair explained.
    Germany and France put a compromise proposal to Poland on a reformed voting system for the European Union and Polish leaders were conferring amid rising optimism, a French presidential spokesman said.
    "We've never been so close to an agreement, or to a disagreement," spokesman David Martinon told reporters on the second day of a crucial EU summit in Brussels.
    Poland said there was no deal yet on the central dispute over the voting system but Warsaw was about to put its own "last chance" proposal to the German EU presidency and France.
    A senior EU diplomat familiar with the talks said Germany, France and Lithuania had put forward a compromise package giving Poland compensation if it accepted the double-majority decision-making procedure backed by all other member states.
    The new system would take effect only in 2014 instead of 2009 as originally planned, and states that were just short of a blocking minority could delay a decision and force further negotiation for a limited period, he said.
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