IGC failure due to lack of political will and Presidency without diplomatic skills to get a deal

12.00.00am GMT Sat 13th Dec 2003

The collapse of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) is attributable to a lack of political will by EU leaders and a Presidency without the diplomatic skills to get a deal, according to London's Euro-MP Baroness Sarah Ludford.

Commenting after the Italian Presidency announced the failure to secure agreement at the IGC, Baroness Ludford said:

"Liberals are disappointed but not surprised at the failure of this summit. For success, two ingredients were essential. The first was sufficient political vision, will and courage on the part of the heads of state and government. The second was a diplomatically skilful Presidency. Clearly, neither of these conditions were met at the outset.

"Fortunately, I understand that the Irish Presidency had foreseen this and had already made contingency plans. I hope that these plans include provision for an IGC within the first quarter of 2004.

Concerning the battle over voting weights in the Council that led to the collapse of the summit, Sarah Ludford added:

"If we are to create an effective Europe with a proper parliamentary democracy it has to be based on representation broadly in line with population. Some protection to ensure smaller Member States are not simply squeezed out by the big ones is fair enough, but Spain and Poland were protesting too much."