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To: long-gone who wrote (61923)	12/11/2000 10:45:49 PM
From: Ahda	Respond to of 116753

As we prove unity is lost somewhere in chads or court or or or Blair lauds EU deal as boost for Britain Tony Blair hailed today’s landmark deal on a new EU treaty as a major boost for Britain’s interests and a turning point for Europe. Mr Blair claimed victory after five days of talks between himself and 14 fellow EU leaders in retaining the UK veto in key decision-making areas such as taxation and social security. At the same time he increased Britain’s relative voting strength. The aim of the deal was to pave the way for the EU’s enlargement in the next few years to bring in 12 of the new democracies in central and eastern Europe, he said. But it was a settlement which reinforced the UK’s place as one of the "big four" alongside Germany, Italy and France. "It was, of course, a very difficult and complicated negotiation but I’m pleased it has had an outcome which is satisfactory and paves the way for enlargement," Mr Blair said. The UK had willingly agreed to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting in key policy areas where it was to Britain’s advantage, but had held firm on taxation and social security, he said. The Prime Minister also agreed to give up one of the UK’s two commissioners in future in exchange for a re-weighting of the UK’s voting power. "Our relative voting strength has been declining: it will now rise. It puts us in a far stronger position," he said. The Prime Minister continued: "There were a number of areas where it was very important for us to protect our national interest, for example in the areas of tax and social security, where we believe decisions on taxation and in respect of social security systems - these are decisions that should be taken by national governments and national parliaments and that position has been recognised." The talks were stalled for a day and a half by an increasingly bitter row over the voting strengths of many of the smaller EU countries, including those which will join in the next few years. Mr Blair rejected suggestions that the final outcome amounted to a stitch-up in which the bigger members retain control: "Some people may fear this is the big countries taking charge of Europe. I don’t see it like that at all. I have never seen this as big versus small." In all, the EU leaders agreed to extend qualified majority voting to 23 more decision-making issues, but Mr Blair pointed out that he had agreed readily and that many were uncontentious issues. Others were directly in the UK’s interests, he said, singling out trade in financial services, where majority voting would stop protectionism holding back British business: industrial policy; financial regulations affecting the EU budget; and the rules and running of the European Court of Justice. The summit agreed that future decisions by qualified majority vote would require a 73 per cent share of the total votes, plus a 62 per cent minimum representation of the total EU population. But that still leaves the smaller countries struggling to hold their own against the largest. Mr Blair said the outcome would make the EU more efficient as it expanded. "This is a settlement that is in the interests of Britain, too. Of course all countries have had their strong national positions to defend and we have been clear for some time about what our national objectives would be." Mr Blair is expected to make a Commons statement to MPs about the outcome of the summit later today.