Growing tensions as leaders prepare for treaty showdown

The Polish government’s demand for member states lacking the necessary blocking majority to be able to delay decisions in the Council of Ministers is threatening to be one of the the most controversial issues for agreeing the reform treaty text on 18-19 October.

Poland is insisting that a revised version of the so-called Ioannina compromise is written into the treaty text and is not simply a declaration as it is in the current draft agreed by legal experts last week. This mechanism would allow member states representing three-quarters of the necessary blocking majority to require the Council of Ministers to delay decisions for a "reasonable time" while making efforts to find greater support for a decision.

But EU governments are concerned that if the procedure is written into the treaty text it could lead to it being used in practice. At the June summit EU leaders agreed to the measure as a way of reassuring Poland that it would not be steamrollered in EU decision-making when the new voting rules, the double majority, enter into force from 2014.

Poland is also seeking other changes on institutions. It wants the number of advocates-general at the European Court of Justice to be increased from eight to possibly ten or 11. Poland would like to have a permanent advocate-general in the same way that France, Germany, Italy, the UK and Spain do at the moment. The other three rotate among smaller member states. EU leaders look like agreeing to this request next week, possibly in a side agreement to the treaty. German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok, one of the three MEPs taking part in the intergovernmental conference, said recently that the request was "reasonable" as the number of advocates-general had not been increased in line with recent enlargements of the EU.

Poland is also asking that lending decisions by the board of the European Investment Bank (EIB) should continue to be taken by unanimity rather than by qualified majority. The Polish government wants to be able to veto the financing by the EU of some major infrastructure projects, such as the Baltic pipeline, which will bring Russian gas to Germany bypassing Poland. Poland has complained that the project does not take account of its concerns about Russia’s use of energy supplies as a geopolitical tool and ignores its national interests. The current draft text from the legal experts says that EIB decisions should be taken unanimously.

Another outstanding issue for the summit is the reference to the European Central Bank (ECB) in the treaty.

In August Jean-Claude Trichet, the president of the ECB, wrote to the Portuguese presidency asking for a separate mention of the bank, different from references to other EU institutions, to emphasise its special status and protect its political independence. Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg backed Trichet’s bid.

Whereas the EU constitution, which the reform treaty seeks to replace, contained such a clause, the draft text of the reform treaty only includes the bank among a list of EU institutions. But given the tense relations between Trichet and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, over the bank’s independence, EU leaders will probably refuse a special reference to the ECB, to avoid a damaging public row at the summit.

The Polish government’s demand for member states lacking the necessary blocking majority to be able to delay decisions in the Council of Ministers is threatening to be one of the the most controversial issues for agreeing the reform treaty text on 18-19 October.