Germany could yield to Polish demands

Germany could sacrifice the influence it gets in the Council of Ministers from being the biggest member state in order to address Poland’s fears of Berlin dominating the EU, according to highly placed EU officials.

One possible option being discussed by officials in Brussels and Berlin is to disregard the fact that Germany has around 20 million more inhabitants than the next biggest member state, France, when calculating whether Council decisions have the support of 65% of the EU’s population. Only the first 60m or so citizens would be taken into account, effectively restoring France’s voting parity with Germany, which it would have lost under the constitution.

The concession would be presented as a way of reducing Germany’s power over Council decisions as the population criteria in the constitution’s double majority system gives it the equivalent of 41 votes compared to 27 for Poland. It would also address fears that if Turkey were to join the EU it would not dominate in the Council because of its population, which is expected to reach 83.4m in 2022.

Polish Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczynski hinted at a willingness to compromise over the issue for the first time this week, saying: "The goal is either to change the voting system as a whole, which is what we prefer, or this goal needs to be attained through other means."

Previously he had insisted that the square-root system for calculating votes that Poland has demanded was "worth dying for".

Capping Germany’s demographic advantage is one of a number of options being discussed to address Poland’s fears.

On Wednesday (20 June) Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek presented a compromise proposal under which the population threshold for agreeing decisions in the Council would be lowered. This would mean that the large member states would have to find more allies to block decisions, reducing their power and raising that of medium-sized countries.

Other options include delaying the introduction of the double majority system until 2014 or expanding on the so-called Ioannina compromise where member states can challenge narrow majorities for a decision.

The German presidency made its first concession on including the voting system in the mandate for an intergovernmental conference (IGC) to decide the fine detail of a new treaty on Tuesday (19 June), when it noted in a draft document that two delegations wanted to raise the issue, a reference to Poland and the Czech Republic.

EU officials said that the precise changes to the voting system could be agreed later, as part of the IGC due to start and finish under the Portuguese presidency.

Officials suggested that the voting system could be linked in the IGC to the size of the Commission, an issue that French President Nicolas Sarkozy is keen to raise. His preferred option, giving the six biggest member states the right to a permanent commissioner, would be strongly opposed by small- and medium-sized member states. Sarkozy has also said that the president of the Commission should be free to select his team. But small member states fear that this would amount to giving large states a permanent member, as the president would naturally take commissioners from the largest states to ensure he or she had support from the most powerful EU leaders.

Germany could sacrifice the influence it gets in the Council of Ministers from being the biggest member state in order to address Poland’s fears of Berlin dominating the EU, according to highly placed EU officials.