EU-verdrag: Polen voor een compromis, maar zal niet overgeven (en)

Polish prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski is standing firm on his country's opposition to the voting system in the EU draft Constitution saying that Poland is ready to compromise but will not surrender.

"Poland is ready for a compromise on the Constitution, not a capitulation," Mr Kaczynski said in an interview with Spanish and French dailies El Pais and Le Monde.

He explained that the alternative voting system proposed by the Polish government, instead of the double majority voting system suggested in the EU draft constitution, is already a compromise because it is "less good [than the Nice Treaty]" for Poland.

Under the Nice Treaty, Poland has almost the same number of votes as Germany, which has double the population.

The system proposed in the constitution takes population much more into account boosting Germany's voting weight and reducing Poland's.

"To accept the model of voting anticipated by the present constitutional treaty, and to be relegated to the worst situation of all the EU, would be a capitulation," Mr Kaczynski said. "A capitulation is never a compromise."

According to the voting system in the constitution, decisions in the 27 member bloc need the backing of at least 55 percent of its members - at least 15 states - representing at least 65 percent of the entire EU population.

Poland, on the other hand, has suggested the voting system should be based on the square root of the population of each member state, giving them more power than the constitution voting system would. Under this system Warsaw would have six votes to Berlin's nine.

Poland is under heavy pressure from Brussels and the other EU member states to drop its objection in order to move the EU out of the deadlock it has been in since the French and Dutch "no" to the draft constitution in 2005.

The chief negotiator - German chancellor and current EU leader Angela Merkel - has urged member states to visit Warsaw in order to talk Mr Kaczynski and his 45-minute-younger brother and Poland's president Lech Kaczynski into a compromise.

"Everyone is hurrying us again," the prime minister said. "They are saying: 'Sign up now quick. The champagne is ready'. We want to calm things down."

French president Nicolas Sarkozy will fly to Warsaw tomorrow to try to see if he can get progress on the issue.

Mr Sarkozy has joined forces with Ms Merkel to try to force a deal when European leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday next week.

For his part, Mr Kaczynski spoke with Ms Merkel by phone on Tuesday night (12 June), reports Polish daily Rzeczpospolita, ahead of a top-level visit by Warsaw to Berlin to discuss the EU treaty on Saturday.

"The prime minister expressed support for the work of the German government, which is striving for a compromise," a Polish official said according to the newspaper.