Duitse christendemocraten dreigen tegen de EU-grondwet te stemmen (en)

Germany's main opposition party, the Christian Democrat CDU, has threatened that if smaller EU member states get a similar voting weight to Germany, it will reject the new European Constitution.

At a CDU party congress in Leipzig, according to Spiegel Online, European affairs speaker Peter Hintze insisted that the double majority system (a majority of countries plus population) must be accepted as the future EU voting mechanism.

Also, European Central Bank independence would have to be secured by the new Constitution in order for it to receive CDU backing - otherwise the CDU will block the new text in both the upper and lower houses of German Parliament.

In the current system, EU decisions are mainly taken by qualified majority voting, in which member states' votes are weighed according to their size. Decision by qualified majority in the Council of Ministers requires 62 out of 87 votes, with Germany and other big states having 10 votes each.

From 2004, in an enlarged EU of 25 countries, the qualified majority is envisaged to be 232 out of 321 votes, with Germany having 29 votes.

However, in the draft EU Constitution a new system of double majority has been proposed from 2009.

It suggests that a decision can be taken when at least half of the member states representing 60% of the EU's population are in favour.

However, Spain and Poland have been lobbying strongly against this system in the on-going talks to finalise the Constitution.

Final talks on the issue are expected to take place among EU leaders on 12-13 December in Brussels