Oost-Europese landen en Benelux willen Grondwet nog voor de Europese verkiezingen (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Meeting this morning (25 March) before the official EU summit talks started, the heads of government of the Visegrad and Benelux countries expressed their hope that an agreement on the EU Constitution could be reached before the European parliament elections next June.

The meeting of the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary -together forming the central European 'Visegrad' group - and those of the Benelux -states Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, was presided over by the Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt.

Mr Verhofstadt said after the meeting that negotiations on the Constitution had "entered a new phase in recent weeks" and that among the Visegrad and Benelux countries a "general will" existed to conclude the talks in the coming months, "preferably before the European elections".

This, however seems problematic, as the British government in particular fears that the European elections might turn into a referendum on the Constitution.

Double majority

The Belgian Prime Minister said that the group of countries supported the compromise proposal by the Irish presidency for a double majority. The compromise says that in the future decisions would be taken when 55% of member states representing 55% of the EU population agree to it.

But the Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, was more cautious about the Irish proposal: "We do not exclude a compromise, but a lot will depend on the details". Poland is one of the big countries which until recently took a hard stance on voting weights, wanting to keep the formula under the Nice Treaty - agreed in 2000.

The Visegrad and Benelux countries further stated that they will only accept a future Commission in which not all member states will have their own Commissioner, under one condition: "equal treatment" and "equal rotation" - suggesting that big member states such as France and Germany might want to dominate the EU body.

An anti-terror tsar

At the Visegrad-Benelux meeting, there was backing for the Dutchman Gijs de Vries to get the new job of anti-terrorism co-ordinator.

Whoever occupies the post will work directly under the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana.

After the meeting, the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende refused to confirm the appointment of Mr De Vries while speaking to Dutch journalists, but his Belgian counterpart was more candid.

Mr Verhofstadt said that considering the experience of Mr De Vries, he is "certainly the right man for the job".

Mr De Vries is a former Dutch State secretary of the Interior, a former leader of the liberal ELDR group in the European Parliament and a former member of the European Convention.