EU elder Juncker floats compromise with Poland

LUXEMBOURG, June 21 (Reuters) The European Union's elder statesman, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, offered a compromise on an EU reform treaty today in a bid to assuage Poland hours before a summit of the 27-nation bloc.

Juncker, a member of the European Council of EU leaders since 1995, suggested that member states be allowed an emergency brake to delay a vote and force further deliberation on decisions to which they objected.

''EU states could be given the possibility in the treaty where majority decision-making applies to postpone the vote and negotiate further,'' he told German business daily Handelsblatt.

Poland wants to change the double-majority voting system enshrined in the defunct EU constitution, whereby decisions require support of 55 per cent of member states representing 65 per cent of the population.

Warsaw argues this gives too much power to big countries, especially Germany, compared to the existing weighted voting system agreed in the 2000 Nice Treaty, which gives Poland almost as many votes as Germany, which has twice its population size.

Juncker spelled out in the Luxemburger Wort his idea of developing a mechanism known as the Ioannina Compromise, agreed in 1994, whereby states that do not quite reach a blocking minority can force an extension of talks for a limited period.

''In practice that means when we are just short of a blocking minority, the debate has to continue. I don't see that as optimal, but that is the maximum step we can take towards Poland,'' he was quoted as saying.

Juncker said he had presented his idea to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and it would be better than delaying the implementation of the new voting system to 2014, which has also been aired as a way out.

He said the 18 countries that had ratified the EU constitution were not prepared to see its substance torn apart at a summit today and tomorrow, even if they were willing to accept it being stripped down into a simple amending treaty.

If there was no deal at the summit, ''then Europe is on the threshold of a split'', he said. ''I am allergic to a two-speed Europe, but that might then be the only way out of a dead end.'' REUTERS SYU KP1531