However these good intentions remain to achieve

Who claims to be desespérer of Europe Three months ago, in Brussels, the twenty-five were in a total stalemate on the future European Constitution, divided on the future rules of voting in the Council of Ministers, on the composition of the Commission and the scope of qualified majority. Today, the optimism is returning. An agreement is now "necessary and possible," is meant in the Elysee Palace, Berlin, but Madrid and Warsaw, also the strongest opponents to the draft convention so far. The ability of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who chairs the Union since January, there certainly is for something, after the Presidency considered awkward by the President of the Italian Council, Silvio Berlusconi. But it is the electoral defeat of the main obstacle to the adoption of the Constitution, José Maria Aznar, on 14 March, which justifies optimism.

Good intentions

The early hours following his election, the PSOE leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, indicated that it would contribute to a rapid adoption of this text. This position unequivocally taken immediately triggered a strategic withdrawal of Polish officials, who do not wish to isolate themselves from the rest of Europe in a few weeks of their entry into the Union.

However, these good intentions remain to achieve. The future head of the Spanish Government, which is not yet officially inducted, not to attend the Summit of the future, yet said the concessions it was willing to do. The Polish Prime Minister, Leszek Miller, will risk peace probably not bring down his cards as long as it will not be those of the Spain. That is why, despite the relative urgency to conclude, the fifteen should just, tomorrow, to give the Presidency Irish mandate for negotiations and to conclude before the 17 and 18 June, date of the next Summit.

The hard point for future negotiations always concerns the terms of voting in the Council. If the Spain and the Poland seem to embrace the principle of double majority which they rejected in favor of the Treaty of Nice so far, which operates under a system of votes weighted by country, it is not sure that they will accept the thresholds proposed by the draft Constitution (half of States representing 60 of the population of the twenty-five). The France and the Germany, as well as the Irish Presidency, there are attached, but if it wants to accede to the request for Warsaw to limit the power of the "big", should be to relieve them.

Meet the incoming

Another solution would be to delay the implementation of the double majority leaving the Nice system run until 2014, for example. But Paris is hostile. Another possibility, blown away by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the "father" of the Constitution, would be to distinguish between two types of qualified majority voting, a classic for most of the texts, and the other more demanding to "sensitive issues".

The composition of the Commission, by contrast, seems to be the subject of a compromise. It would have one Commissioner per State member until 2014, to meet the new members, date at which it would be a commission of 15 to 18 members automatically. Finally is the delimitation of the scope of qualified majority voting which always faces the will of Britain to retain its veto on taxation, social issues and judicial cooperation. But, under pressure from terrorism, Tony Blair would be prepared to waive its veto on judicial cooperation.