Eu Offers Opt-Outs To Uk

The European Union on Tuesday offered Britain, Ireland and Denmark opt-outs from parts of a new EU treaty in a move that leaders hope will lead to closer cooperation in crime fighting and immigration policy.

The offer came as EU leaders began a second day of negotiations on a new treaty that is designed to modernise the bloc as it heads for the next century and the incorporation of as many as a dozen new members from eastern Europe.

Officials said there was wide agreement on the direction the new treaty should take, but large differences remained among the 15 countries on sensitive issues such as defence and power

 

sharing. We have not come very far this morning, Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen said.

Under the latest draft treaty, drawn up by the Dutch EU presidency overnight, EU countries would agree to cooperate more closely in areas such as asylum, immigration, visa policy and crime fighting.

The Schengen agreement, linking most of the blocs countries in a partially completed border-free zone, would also be incorporated into the EU, lifting frontiers throughout the continent.

But Britain, Ireland and Denmark would be given various opt-outs to meet their internal political concerns. Britain and Ireland would retain their borders and the right to set their own visa, immigration and asylum policy.

London has argued that its island status makes its internal security policy different from the rest of the bloc. Ireland is linked to Britain through a passport union.

Denmarks opt-out is a reiteration of a previous one, reflecting its constitutional problems with passing sovereignty to EU institutions.

As a member of the Schengen group it is expected to remain part of the border-free zone. The move to beef up cooperation on borders and immigration is part of the EUs plans to create what the draft treaty calls an area of freedom, security and justice that is designed to appeal to its sometimes distant citizens.

Officials said there were a number of areas remaining, particularly in the area of defence and so-called flexibility, the concept of allowing the blocs keenest integrationist to move ahead without the others.

On defence, Britain, Denmark and the blocs neutrals Sweden, Ireland, Finland and Austria were resisting calls for integration of the Western European Union (WEU) into the bloc, seen by the rest as a step torwards true integration.

The language in the latest draft had been toned down saying only that the WEU might one day be in the EU but opposition remains.

An aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: He is not going to allow anything to go through which he believes cou ld be interpreted as undermining NATO.

Diplomats said one of the toughest fights would be over flexibility, the idea of letting some integrate faster that others.

A number of countries, worried that they will be left behind by eager integrationists, want individual member states to have a veto over such plans, but Germany, France and others are adamantly opposed to this.