Preparing the ground for an EU leaders' summit in Brussels this week (28-29 October), when treaty change will be discussed, foreign ministers said opinion was sharply divided over the proposal, despite strong German and French backing.
Germany wants to change the EU's Lisbon Treaty, which came into force last December after eight years of negotiation, to make sure it includes a permanent system for handling financial crises, such as another Greek-style debt collapse.
France backs the initiative, but many others in the 27-country EU are sceptical about the benefits and concerned about the fallout from reopening a treaty whose ushering into law caused deep division and political uncertainty.
"The drama became clear to everybody," Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told reporters yesterday, referring to a discussion on treaty change over the weekend.
"It underlines the need to find a solution - but the result was not the solution 'big treaty change'."
Germany's foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, acknowledged the extent of division over the issue but said there was no way to have more financial stability without changing the treaty.
"Talks will continue now day and night in order to find common ground [before] Thursday," he told reporters.
France appears convinced that changing the treaty will be possible and its European affairs minister, Pierre Lellouche, described it as a necessary historical step.
"There is a true will from France and Germany to save our common currency," he said, acknowledging that treaty change was "hard to accept" for some countries.
Germany has been pushing treaty change for months, but the idea only gained traction last week after a deal was struck in which Berlin won support for the plan in exchange for backing Paris on a softening of new EU budget rules.
Berlin wants a permanent crisis resolution mechanism because the current system, created in May to handle the fallout from the Greek debt crisis, runs out in 2013, is taxpayer-funded and is legally ambiguous under the current Lisbon Treaty.
Division hardening?
At first the very idea of reworking the treaty so soon after it came into law looked a non-starter, with Britain and many others strongly opposed and any changes requiring EU unanimity.
But there are signs Britain could support the move if it applied only to the 16 countries that use the euro, meaning Britain would not have to hold a referendum on the issue.
Even if Germany and France can bring Britain onside, there remain several obstacles, and opening up the treaty could prompt others to propose their own changes.
Some eurozone countries have said they support the idea in principle but have concerns about the length of time it would take to introduce changes and doubt whether it is practicable.
As part of last week's Franco-German deal, it was agreed proposals should be drawn up ahead of a leaders' summit in March. That deadline has not been fixed, but it is among issues leaders will discuss at their summit in Brussels this week.
Despite the momentum injected into the debate by the Franco-German deal and indications some former opponents could now be more supportive, analysts remain doubtful it can pass.
"Treaty change is an extremely difficult thing to do," said Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist of the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think-tank. "Experience tells us that it takes a lot of time and that there are serious risks."
"The question is whether the process can be made quick enough to ensure that we have something firm in place before 2013 and that is doubtful," he told Reuters.
(EurActiv with Reuters.)
