EU nations agree to push for reform treaty deal next month

(VIANA DO CASTELO) - All European Union nations want to agree the text of a wide-ranging reform treaty for the bloc next month, despite several remaining snags, the EU's Portuguese presidency said Friday.

"We have set a timetable and we are sticking to that ambition," Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado told a press conference after talks with his EU counterparts in Viana do Castelo, northern Portugal.

"All member states were very keen that we should fulfil the mandate" for a treaty agreed by EU leaders in June, he added.

Among the remaining obstacles to an agreement is Poland.

Portugal is determined to secure a deal by an October 18-19 EU summit, just days before Poland is due to hold highly sensitive legislative elections.

The vast reform treaty is meant to replace the now-defunct constitution and streamline the way the bloc operates. Eurosceptics see it as a sizeable step down the path towards a federal Europe.

EU leaders have pledged to try to ratify the treaty document by 2009, so that European Parliament elections that year are not undermined by a lack of public confidence in the European project.

But to achieve that, the 27 member countries will need at least a year to push the text through their national parliaments, for the most part, and in referendums, which proved lethal to the constitution.

Poland, the biggest of 10 mainly ex-communist countries to join the EU in 2004, has rarely shied away from using its political weight, notably to get its way on its share of the bloc's long-term budget.

When asked whether she was in talking or listening mode, Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga said with a laugh: "Normally I speak" and she added, "as usual, we will be active."

She underlined that there were still some outstanding treaty issues, including Warsaw's likely insistence that, like Britain, it is afforded an opt-out on the fundamental rights charter.

"This is a priority," she said.

Britain has also voiced concerns, but at the June EU summit, London secured concessions in key areas, notably justice and home affairs, social security, and a Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Yet calls have been growing in Britain for a national referendum on the reform treaty, as was promised for the constitution before it was scuppered by 'no' votes in similar plebiscites in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

But British Foreign Secretary David Miliband underlined that "parliament historically has always played the role of addressing institutional reform of the sort that we are now discussing ... and that parliamentary process is the right way of doing it rather than through a referendum."

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn called on both Britain and Poland to "show solidarity".

"Poland and Britain know very well that now is not the time to haggle" as just "little details, not big problems," remained to be ironed out in the text, a draft of which was presented to member states by the Portuguese in July.

He remained convinced that "we will take a decision in Lisbon and sign the treaty in December".

Andrew Duff, a British member of the European Parliament sitting in on the talks, said that "both Poland and Great Britain now have quite some explaining to do" to clarify longering problems they have with the treaty.

However he noted that "the spirit of the discussions was quite good" and that the 27 member nations "want the treaty signed in December."

Informal Meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers (GYMNICH)