Analysis: Will Merkel, Sarkozy reform EU?

BERLIN, June 21 (UPI) -- European Union leaders are to meet Thursday for a long-awaited summit in Brussels that is aimed at bringing the EU into a new era of more efficient policymaking. The summit will likely be heated -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU president, has to deal with roughly 15 reform demands put to her by the member states, with Britain and Poland threatening to derail the talks.

Poland has in recent weeks threatened to veto any reform plans that include "double majority" voting, a system aimed at streamlining the body's tedious decision-making and supported by at least 25 of the 27 member states. The double majority system would see a bill becoming law when at least 55 percent of the national governments representing at least 65 percent of the EU's total population of nearly 500 million supported it.

But Polish Prime Minister Jaroslav Kaczynski and his brother Lech, the country's president, have proposed an alternative voting system based on the square root of each country's population -- the Kaczynski twins have announced they will fight to the "death" for their square root system, which would give Poland nearly as many votes as Germany, which it accuses of collecting power taken from the smaller member states.

The Kaczynskis even use Germany's Nazi past as a point of contention over voting reform.

"We only claim what was taken from us," Prime Minister Jaroslav Kaczynski said Wednesday in an interview on Polish radio, according to the Financial Times newspaper. "If Poland didn't have to experience the years 1939 until 1945, Poland today would have a population of 66 million."

The Kaczynskis say that Poland, a country of 40 million people, should not have fewer votes than Germany, which has 82 million citizens and is the continent's most populous country. But the Kaczynskis are virtually alone in Europe, with their position half-heartedly backed only by the neighboring Czech Republic.

Britain is another possible hurdle. London has made it clear there are lines it is unwilling to cross, mainly handing over national powers to Brussels in the areas of foreign policy, defense, human rights and taxes.

Some say Britain could be softened up if outgoing Prime Minister Tony Blair gets the job of EU president; freshly elected French President Nicholas Sarkozy has already proposed such a move and has talked about it with Merkel. London, however, derided reports that Blair would become more flexible if offered the new job.

Germany, which holds the rotating EU presidency until the end of the month, wants member states to adopt a text outlining the treaty's contents and set a mandate for an intergovernmental conference to hammer out a final version.

That final version should see more decisions being taken by majority, rather than unanimous voting, a move that observers hope will make the EU a more effective player in world politics. The new agreement would also trim the size of the inefficient European Commission and introduce a president and a foreign minister.

Berlin has said it is willing to achieve an agreement between all 27 member states, albeit not at all costs.

"We have to be able to show to our people that -- as the main member state when it comes to payments and population -- we have an appropriate weight in the decision-making process," Michael Stuebgen, a Europe expert and one of Merkel's conservatives, Thursday told German news channel n-tv.

Berlin said it will not let Warsaw bully them into a watered-down agreement that fails to move the EU forward.

"If there's no agreement at the end of the summit, then it's not the end of the world," sources from the German EU presidency said Wednesday in Berlin.

Merkel, however, wants to make her final summit as EU president a success; observers say she may turn to Sarkozy as a new ally in Europe to help her plans for the EU become reality.

It is the first EU leaders' summit for Sarkozy, who said Wednesday what was at stake in Brussels "is nothing less than pulling Europe out of immobility," a deadlock that started with the French and Dutch rejections of the original draft of the proposed constitution in 2005 referenda.

Observers say that if Sarkozy were seen to clearly back reforming the EU, it would inject the process with a new momentum.

Sarkozy favors a mini-treaty along the German proposals; such a treaty could be adopted without further referenda, allowing for the more complex issues -- such as enlargement -- to be tackled later.

In facing the potential deadlock that both Britain and Poland could bring to the table, Sarkozy and Merkel will need to work hard to ensure their shared vision of the future of the European Union does not die before negotiations are complete.