Curious to be in a country where public opinion is very pro-Europe, but the government is Eurosceptic. Opinion polls show a solid 80% approval rating for the European Parliament, compared to about 20% for the national parliament. As one MP said, "The people are strongly pro-Europe, but still have to convince the government"

I am in Warsaw at the invitation of the the Polish Senate to speak about the future of the Constitutional Treaty, now that the prospects for negotiating a new version of it

The new right-wing Polish government was one of those who considered the treaty dead following the French referendum two years ago, but is now quite keen to get into new negotiations on it. However, they want to re-open the institutional package, which the French and Dutch leaders say they are happy with. In particular, they want to renegotiate the voting system in the Council of Ministers, to give each state a vote based on the square root of its population!!

No other country has shown the slightest interest in re-opening this particular issue, and they all accept the "double majority" system laid down in the Constitutional Treaty, whereby votes must represent a large majority of the population (66%) and a majority (55%) of states. This is felt to be fair on big and small States alike.

The square root theory does actually have a sound base in academic literature. The idea is that, with block votes, only the big units count, and cutting everyone back to their square root actually equalises the influence of individual citizens, whether they are in a big unit or a small one. It protects the smaller states, as it obviously cuts the larger ones' votes by more than the smaller ones.

However, the double majority system also protects smaller states, though in a different way, by requiring a majority of states as well as of the population and also by requiring a high majority in the population vote (65%) that cannot be attained by the bigger states alone.

Everyone suspects that the Poles really want to keep the old system of the current treaty of Nice, which gives them a disproportionately high number of votes (they have 27, compared to 29 for Germany which has more than double its population). Even Spain, which is of the same size as Poland and similarly over represented in the old system, is not seeking to reopen that issue (or any other aspect of the Constitutional Treaty).

The Polish ministers we met (the parliamentarians hardly mentioned the issue) said that that was not their intention at all, that they just want a better treaty, and that accusations that they are Eurosceptic are misplaced, as they support the principle of a supranational EU and the President has said that he would even like to see a European army.

Be that as it may, we are in for a difficult negotiation if Poland (and even more if other governments follow their example) want to reopen past agreements they have made that are contested by no-one else, not even the French or the Dutch.