Blair agrees to lose one seat on EU Commission

Britain is prepared to give up its automatic right to appoint a European commissioner in return for sweeping changes in Brussels.

Britain is prepared to give up its automatic right to appoint a European commissioner in return for sweeping changes in Brussels.

At tomorrow's European Union summit in Biarritz, Tony Blair will call for a shake-up of the European Commission, already seen as unwieldy and which will grow when the EU expands to the east. At present small countries send one commissioner to Brussels, while countries such as Britain send two, in the Britain's case Neil Kinnock, commission vice-president, and Chris Patten, in charge of external affairs.

The expectation is that Britain will lose one of these posts to prevent the commission, which has 20 members, expanding out of control when enlargement takes place.

In return the big countries want greater voting power in the Council of Ministers, the EU's main decision-making body. But even this is viewed as unsatisfactory in Whitehall because, while some commissioners with weighty portfolios have considerable power, others make little impact and have a light workload.

But yesterday British officials disclosed that the Government is willing to sacrifice the right to choose a commissioner and to create a system whereby member-states would nominate their best candidates and the commission president would select the final team of around 12.

The fiercest opposition is likely to come from small countries, concerned that their influence would be eroded if they lost their representative in Brussels. If they block the idea of eliminating quotas, Downing Street will press for more reforms such as the creation of tiers of commissioners, with a new, expanded team of vice-presidents and greater sub-division of portfolios.

The Tories agree there is a need for change. Francis Maude, shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "There is a strong case for member countries no longer to have an automatic right to nominate a commissioner." He said commissioners should no longer be politicians but impartial civil servants implementing decisions of the Council of Ministers.

Tomorrow's summit comes two months before changes to the EU's governing treaties are due to be decided at a summit in Nice. Mr Blair faces a clash on issues including that of closer co-operation among member-states that want to integrate faster.

Plans put forward by Germany and Italy would scrap the "emergency break", which allows any country to prevent a group of others forging ahead faster. Britain now accepts the principle of closer co-operation but says any combination of two countries should be able to block a specific project.

The Government will also embark on tough negotiations over moves to end the veto in a number of new areas of decision-making. More than 40 proposals are on the table, and ministers say that they will resist any efforts to extend majority voting into sensitive areas such as taxation.

Although the text of a charter of fundamental rights is accepted by Britain, Downing Street said yesterday that it would resist any attempt to enshrine it in European law.

Britain also has reservations over plans to revise Article Seven of the treaty, to make it easier for the EU to take a role if there is concern that countries may break common commitments to democratic values. This has been prompted by the dispute over Austria, where the admission of the far right into government led to political exclusions against Vienna, action which ultimately had to be withdrawn.