The results of the elections in Spain (held on 14 March) could provide impetus to the stalled talks on the EU Constitution.

"I believe that we will rapidly reach an agreement which will maintain a reasonable balance of power that will define the new, enlarged Europe," Spain's new Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has said in a radio interview. "Spain is going to be more pro-Europe than ever. I am deeply convinced of that," he said in a different context.

Negotiations on the EU Constitution have been blocked since December 2004 when, at a summit meeting which was supposed to agree a final text, Spain and Poland refused to budge on the question of voting weights in the Council. Since then, an alternative formula has emerged to the Convention's initial proposal, proposing decision-making at 55 per cent of Member States and 55 per cent of the EU's population. The collective population of the "big three" is 44 per cent. This formula would therefore prevent them from forming a blocking minority. Germany has given its initial support for this proposal.

Poland fears that Spain's readiness to compromise on the Constitution would leave it in isolation. "We have to find a solution which will not lead to that isolation," the Financial Times quotes Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller as saying.

It is widely hoped that Spain's newly found "Europeanness" may pave the way towards an agreement before the European elections in June. The acid test will come at the European Summit meeting of 25-26 March when a decision will be taken on how to move forward the negotiations on the EU Constitution based on an assessment by the Irish Presidency.

from EurActive