Polen lijkt standpunt over stemgewicht te versoepelen (en)

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski yesterday gave the first signs of softening Poland's hard line stance on voting weights in the proposed EU Constitution.

In an interview with Polish radio, he said, "We absolutely have to fight to keep the Nice principles, but not at any price".

"To make Europe collapse, to make the European Union collapse does not make any sense".

Poland has, up until now, been firm on its insistence that the voting weights thrashed out at a summit in Nice be maintained.

These voting weights give Poland almost as much voting power as Germany - which has a much larger population.

Poland is supported in its fight to keep the current weightings by Spain, but France and Germany want to keep the voting system proposed in the current draft Constitution.

This latter system requires 50 percent of countries representing over 60 percent of the population to be in favour of a proposal for it to pass.