Applicants vow to fight ‘unjust’ treaty deal on MEP seats

Date: 21/12/00

By Simon Taylor

HUNGARY and the Czech Republic are demanding that EU governments rewrite the Nice Treaty to give them more seats in the European Parliament, after warning that the summit deal could increase opposition to Union membership in their countries.

Both governments have warned that unless the agreement struck in Nice is changed so they are given 22 MEPs, the same number of seats as similarly-sized countries such as Belgium, Greece and Portugal, they will insist that the issue is tackled as part of their EU entry negotiations. "We will use any opportunity to change this situation, including during the accession negotiations," said Czech Ambassador to the Union Libor Secka this week.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Kavan has written to his French counterpart Hubert Védrine asking him to "guarantee equal treatment of all current and future member states" and warning that the issue could "directly affect public opinion in the Czech Republic".

In a letter to all EU foreign ministers, Hungary's Janos Martonyi echoed this, calling the decision "incomprehensible" and urging them to rethink the share-out of seats.

The warning will spark fears that the treaty agreed after nine months of fierce wrangling between existing member states may have to be reopened before the next planned Intergovernmental Conference in 2004 if either of the applicants concerned is ready to join the Union before that date.

The Czech Republic and Hungary are seen as having the best chance of entering the EU before the next IGC, and the decision to give them fewer MEPs than countries with similar population levels has increased fears that they will be treated as second-class members when they join the Union.

German centre-right MEP Elmar Brok, one of the Parliament's representatives at the treaty negotiations, has accused EU leaders of "intolerable discrimination" and called on them to think again.

The outcry over the share-out of MEPs is one of many disputes which have erupted over the treaty.

Bitter divisions also emerged between EU governments within days over the number of votes needed to block decisions in the Council of Ministers when the Union expands to 27 members, after it was revealed that the various thresholds agreed in Nice were contradictory.

The French presidency failed to reach agreement on the issue at a meeting of EU ambassadors yesterday but talks were set to resume today (21 December). Spain's envoy Javier Conde insisted that the blocking minority should be set at 88 votes, making it easier for big member states to muster enough support to block proposals they opposed. His French, British and Italian counterparts agreed.

But Germany, Belgium, Finland, Portugal and other countries argued that the threshold for a qualified majority should be set higher to make it more difficult to form blocking minorities.

The discrimination against the Czech Republic and Hungary emerged in the final hours of haggling over the treaty. Belgium, Portugal and Greece were given two extra MEPs each to win their support for the agreement on the rebalancing of votes in the Council. The decision provoked outrage in Prague and Budapest because the Czech Republic's population is bigger than that of Belgium and Portugal, and Hungary's is larger than that of Portugal.

Their protests have been fuelled by comments by French President Jacques Chirac, who said during the negotiations in Nice that it was natural for new member states to have a "handicap" compared to existing members.

One issue which was resolved this week was the argumentover whether to end the practice of holding all summits in the presidency country. After some wrangling, ambassadors formally endorsed the decision taken in Nice that Brussels will host one summit of EU leaders every six months from 2002 and all summit meetings will be held in the Belgian capital once the Union has taken in three new states.

Hungary and the Czech Republic are demanding that EU governments rewrite the Nice Treaty to give them more seats in the European Parliament, after warning that the summit deal could increase opposition to Union membership in their countries.