Proposal To Expand Eu Fold

The plans aim to allow the Europe Union to enlarge to as many as 27 members without threatening prospects of stronger political and economic ties among more advanced countries.

The Franco-German initiative was presented as a joint contribution to a debate on flexibility due to take place next week as part of continuing talks in the intergovernmental conference to revise the Maastricht treaty.

The plans face stiff resistance from the UK government which could exercise its veto to the treaty changes in the closing stages of the intergovernmental conference .

Michel Barnier, French minister for EU affairs, and Werner Hoyer, German secretary of state for foreign affairs, stressed the idea was to allow greater flexibility, but within limits.

 

These limits included ensuring that strengthened co-operation took place within and not outside the Union.

This meant respecting the EUs acquis communautaire - the core body of EU legislation - and protecting the Commissions right to monitor laws.

In addition, no EU member state should be allowed to veto planned action of a group of member states, and all countries which willing and able to take part in any initiative should be permitted to do so.

There are those who argue that closer co-operation might call into question what we have achieved, such as the single market. We want to dispel these concerns, Barnier said.

The first steps towards establishing a common EU-wide tax regime were backed by the European Commission.

However, the plans are unlikely to make much impact because of opposition by member states to giving up sovereignty in fiscal affairs.

The document argues that the Union will not be able to complete the single market or combat unemployment without tax harmonisation.