Poland hints it might drop EU treaty threat

Poland hinted on Friday it could drop its threat to veto talks on a new European Union treaty while Germany piled on more pressure for agreement at next week's summit.
Poland's eurosceptic ruling Kaczynski twins have threatened to block progress on the charter for reforming EU institutions at a June 21-22 summit if their demands for re-weighting the EU voting system are not taken into account.
Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski told Polish daily Dziennik he was more optimistic of an agreement after the visit of conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday.
"I believe we can say some light has appeared. But it is too early to say anything definitive or give any details," said the nationalist prime minister who generally takes an even harder line on Europe than his brother, President Lech Kaczynski.
The prime minister's foreign policy adviser told Rzeczpospolita daily that Sarkozy had made a new proposal which was being analysed by the Polish side, but gave no details. Sarkozy's visit was part of a joint diplomatic offensive to convince Poland not to obstruct the charter.
Warsaw believes the voting rules contained in the treaty give too much power to big countries - Germany in particular. Poland's demands are backed only by the Czech Republic.
The Polish president will travel to Berlin at the weekend to meet the German Chancellor and EU presidency holder, Angela Merkel. In an apparent warning to Poland and others wanting changes to the charter, Merkel said there were limits to what any state could demand. Britain wants no reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, for instance.
"There are many countries that have problems and the bigger the problems of some, the bigger those of others become because all have their red lines," Merkel said after meeting Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero in Berlin.
Zapatero, heading for Warsaw on Friday, said he was confident a compromise could be reached in Brussels. "The message I will deliver to our dear Polish friends is that we need to look forward and make progress, that this is necessary."
The German presidency's proposal for the Brussels summit omitted any mention of changing the proposed voting system, making it look unlikely Poland's demand would be taken into account. Warsaw's relations with the European Union have deteriorated since the Kaczynskis took power in 2005. The brothers show a deep suspicion of Germany, rooted in Poland's suffering under Nazi occupation during World War Two.
Sarkozy was regarded as having the best chance of persuading the Kaczynskis - he has the right political leanings, is not anti-American and also has family roots in central Europe.
The Kaczynskis clearly appeared content that Sarkozy stressed the importance of history during his visit, rather than just saying Poland and Europe needed to move on from the past. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner was upbeat. "I'm personally rather optimistic about all this. The will for a consensus I think exists but I cannot say more than that," he told a news conference in Paris on Friday.