Malta closely guarding its sixth seat

As EU leaders yesterday started meeting for a two-day EU summit in Lisbon hoping to bring to a successful end an Intergovernmental Conference on a new treaty for the EU, Malta was closely monitoring the fine text of the draft treaty to make sure the deal struck by EU leaders last June will be part and parcel of the final agreement.

Following Malta's insistence, EU leaders had agreed to guarantee a minimum six seats for member states in the European Parliament as from the next legislature starting in mid-2009.

This will enable Malta to get an additional seat at the EU chamber in addition to its current five MEPs.

Although this issue had already been settled in June and followed up by the Portuguese Presidency by including this provision into the final text of the draft treaty, the issue came up again for discussion following Italy's refusal to accept an agreement approved by the European Parliament last week decreasing its presence at the EP by six MEPs.

Even though in its criticism Italy did not target Malta's six seats, the issue has surfaced on the summit's agenda creating some uncertainty.

But Italy yesterday cleared the air on this issue during a brief exchange between Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi before the start of the summit.

"We are going to stick to what we have agreed on last June," Dr Gonzi told The Times at the end of yesterday's first session of the summit.

"We need to make sure that at the end of the day, the minimum six-seat threshold for member states is included in the final text of the treaty," Dr Gonzi said.

The Portuguese Presidency is hoping for a final compromise between the 27 member states by the end of this summit and all is looking positive despite some minor issues concerning various member states.

Presidency sources said an agreement is "within reach", however, there are some issues still to be ironed out.

Facing internal criticism over his decision not to hold a referendum to ratify the new Treaty, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown is adamant to get assurances that the Charter of Fundamental Rights will not apply to the UK.

Poland is still insisting on its demand to include a provision to delay decisions it doesn't like while Italy is asking to leave the allocation of EP seats to a later date.

Other issues include Bulgaria's insistence to start calling the euro, evro, something which the European Central Bank has vetoed while Austria is seeking to maintain quotas for foreign students.

But despite all these demands, Presidency sources last night told The Times that none of these issues is likely to hold back a final agreement.

If a compromise is struck by the end of the summit, the new EU Reform Treaty will most likely start being called the Lisbon Treaty and will bring to end years of haggling over the grand EU constitution project, doomed two years ago following the negative referenda in France and the Netherlands.

The plan is for this treaty to be formally signed by all 27 EU leaders in December so that member states will complete its ratification by the end of next year. The treaty is expected to come into effect in January 2009.

Despite the fact that the Maltese Parliament had already ratified the EU Constitution, which for the first time had brought the two leading political parties agreeing on the island's EU membership, Malta will still have to endorse the new treaty once again.