Warsaw and Madrid were unable to see things Silvio's way

EU Leaders failed to work out differences over a new constitution for Europe on Saturday, despite a last-ditch effort by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for a compromise over voting rights. Berlusconi, current holder of the EU presidency, was unable to avoid the scuppering of the talks designed to pave the way for a new EU constitution. “Unfortunately there was complete disagreement as we dealt with the topic of the voting system,” he told a press conference after the talks collapsed. “Unity in this question at the current time is not possible.” European Union leaders meeting in Brussels this weekend had made little headway on the first day of the summit. At the heart of the dispute is the reluctance of Poland and Spain to accept newly weighted voting rights in the draft text, which would greatly reduce the influence of the two countries. Berlusconi said earlier he would present a number of compromise suggestions, but had warned if the leaders failed to accept them all of the work the Italian EU presidency had put towards approving the constitution could be in vain. The new constitution is supposed to prepare the EU for next May when it expands from 15 to 25 members. Most observers consider the bloc’s current institutional setup as too unwieldy and inefficient. Besides ending the rotation of the EU presidency amongst the national governments, the draft constitution aims to streamline the EU Commission and decision-making. Warsaw and Madrid both object to how the proposed constitution would curtail smaller countries’ voting rights in the EU council of ministers. The 2000 Nice treaty gave Poland and Spain 27 votes each, only two less than much more populous France and Germany. The new constitution would change that and require a so-called double majority: Decisions would have to be approved by a majority of countries representing 60 percent of the EU’s population.