Germany could offer delay in EU vote reform -sources

By Paul Taylor

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - With three days to go to a crucial summit on reforming the European Union, diplomats say EU president Germany could offer Poland a delay in introducing a new voting system as a last-minute gambit to clinch a deal.

But it is by no means certain that Poland's ruling Kaczynski brothers, who nurture a deep historical suspicion of Germany, would accept.

"If I were the Germans, I would offer to postpone the switch for a couple of years, say to 2011, and accept 2013 at the very end as a compromise," one diplomat involved in the negotiations said, stressing he had no inside knowledge of German intentions.

Two other senior EU diplomats said such an offer, combined with a mechanism enabling minorities of member states to force further deliberation before the EU takes a decision, may be Germany's best chance of averting a Polish veto.

But they said any such offer would only be made in the final hours of the summit set for Thursday and Friday.

Warsaw has fought to reopen a reform of the 27-nation bloc's voting system agreed in 2004, which it says favours big states, especially Germany, at Poland's expense.

No other country except the Czech Republic -- half-heartedly -- backs the Poles.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has firmly resisted any attempt to go back on the so-called double majority system, under which most decisions would require 55 percent of member states representing 65 percent of the EU population to pass.