EU leaders strive to break deadlock

NICE, France -- The European Union summit is entering a fourth day with leaders deadlocked over how to streamline its institutions in preparation for the bloc's future expansion.

EU president France worked through the night on another package of reforms after its first proposal fell under a hail of criticism and compromise offers failed to rally all the other 14 partners.

Smaller nations in particular feared their clout was being diminished.

France has presented a new compromise Sunday to break the impasse, which keeps voting parity between France and Germany, and gives more votes to Poland and the Netherlands.

VIDEO CNN's Patricia Kelly reports on France's bold attempt to break a European deadlock Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)    REFERENCE   •  Summit preview   •  Main sticking point   •  Chirac's salvation?   •  On the agenda   •  What do they want?   •  Votes vs. population   •  Jargon glossary   •  EU enlargement map   •  History of EU growth   •  What kind of Europe?   •  France's EU presidency   •  In-depth: Changing face of Europe   •  Message board

The leaders are agreed that if an enlarged EU is to function, they must slim the its executive, the European Commission, which currently has 20 members, and re-weight national votes on the decision-making Council of Ministers to better reflect the size of their populations.

They also recognise the need to curb the number of EU decisions subject to veto by individual countries in favour of more "qualified majority voting" (QMV).

But with no solutions to any of these matters agreed, some feverish negotiating is being done at what has become the longest-running summit in the bloc's history.

The Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama said that the initial French Presidency proposals were "humiliating" for smaller nations.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis opposed plans for re-weighting national votes, "because it is clear it represents an effort to create a directorate of big countries."

French head of state Jacques Chirac is the man under pressure to produce a result in what is seen as the creation of the framework for the mainly eastward expansion.

Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said the talks, originally due to end lunchtime on Saturday, could now drag on into Monday: "I am prepared to stay until Monday night and there are reasons to believe that this will be necessary."

Weary French organisers extended delegates' hotel rooms until Monday and joked glumly about how long the summit would take. "I've just been out to order a Christmas tree to put on the podium for the press conference on the 25th," one remarked.

CNN.com European Political Editor Robin Oakley contributed to this report

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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