Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the outstanding issues, I still have to speak with seven countries, including some of the larger member states and those discussions will be extremely important. The opinions of every country are important but Germany, France and the United Kingdom, which has concerns about justice and home affairs, have all raised a range of issues throughout the Convention, never mind in the discussions of the last ten months or so.

On the major institutional issues a number of points remain. The Parliament is a major issue to small countries because the Convention says they should have four members but there has been a heated debate in these countries that they should have five or even six members. It would be easy to increase the numbers but the seats must come from somewhere and that would create difficulties.

The formation of the Commission in future is an issue, whether we stay at one Commissioner per member state or reduce to a smaller number. There have been long and heated discussions on that and we have tabled a proposal on the matter. There is substantial, but not total, agreement on the issue. Those countries that would like to see a Commissioner per member state in perpetuity are still arguing their case.

On qualified majority voting there are many areas under discussion. We have set out our stall but there are others who still argue for QMV as opposed to unanimity in several areas. Many of them are individual cases but they have not been agreed.

There are many technical issues, such as the budget, because the financial perspectives of individual member states can conflict with each other. For each one we solve, we open up another on a different side. There are probably a dozen such issues and they are very important for the countries involved. Many of them concern parliamentary committee issues similar to those dealt with by our own Committee on European Affairs Sub-Committee on European Scrutiny, which makes suggestions and proposals we must examine.

There are a range of outstanding issues and in all of these we have tried to narrow discussions. The British position on justice and home affairs is still difficult because Britain has a different legal system, as we do, where common law exists. There are four or five major issues surrounding criminal law aspects and a public prosecutor. Such issues are difficult to resolve.

The main protagonists are the three Governments I am meeting this week, namely, Germany, France and Britain. I will meet Germany, France and the UK in succession because the issues involve those three. If those three agree, most of the others can, except perhaps on one issue which also affects Malta, Cyprus and ourselves, being the common law countries. They are the most sensitive issues but the most difficult issue is weighted voting. There are still several different views on that issue. Smaller countries, which are in the majority, would like decisions to be supported by equal population and equal state size. That has been their position throughout. Other countries want a ratio 60 to 50 per cent. Spain wants 66 per cent, down from 70 per cent. I am doing my best to figure out what Poland wants. It is having some difficulty but its position is no longer the same as that of Spain.

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