Romanian President expects "treaty of amendment" at European Council

Romanian President Traian Basescu said prior to his departure for Brussels on Thursday that one couldn’t speak of a deal over Europe’s Constitutional Treaty because the resulting document of the summer European Council this week might be a “treaty of amendment” of three prior treaties of the EU - the Treaty of Rome, the Maastricht Treaty and Euratom.

Such a document would be the needed compromise for the European Union reform to continue, he said.

Romanian objectives for the EU Summit in Brussels, as presented by the President today:

● sustain the necessity for the European Charter of Fundamental Rights to prevail upon the internal legislation of each EU member

● sustain the necessity that the EU should have a judicial personality

● regarding the dispute of the role of the national parliaments, Romania considers that each of them needs to have an important role and be consulted by the European Parliament. Their decisions should be taken in consideration by the European Parliament

● in foreign affairs and common security issues - Romania supports the necessity of a single foreign policy of the EU

● when discussing the clause regarding the energy security, Romania will sustain the thesis of an energy support for countries in difficulty

● a controversial point in the new treaty is the future voting system within the Union. Basescu explained that Romania wishes to maintain the number of votes agreed upon by the Constitutional Treaty, even though it will have less votes

Germany proposed that the number of votes should be assigned according to each country’s population but the idea was firmly rejected by Poland and the Czech Republic. The two states want a proportional voting system, that would assure a higher importance for small states

The objective of the Romanian delegation is to make sure that the “amendment treaty” does not change the agreed clauses under the Constitutional Treaty that Romania has already signed. The President added that our country will negotiate its requirements.

Moreover, Traian Basescu assured that Romania wishes that a compromise be reached and it would do its best to make sure of this outcome.

Both Romanian President Traian Basescu and the Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu attend the European Council taking place in Brussels on June 21-22, which ends the German Presidency of the Union.

HotNews.ro, Jun 21, 2007