As the convention drawing up the first-ever European Union constitution prepares to conclude its negotiations, Germany has won a key concession allowing member states to retain control over migrant labor coming from outside the EU.

But it was a compromise ruling. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer failed to secure member states' veto rights over general immigration and refugee policy as Germany requested. Instead, the convention consented to a ruling on the granting of work permits by individual member states. Issues such as the rights of family members to follow immigrants to their host countries or minimum social standards for refugees will be decided by qualified majority voting by the council of ministers.

Veto remains for key policy areas

Convention delegates are said to have been taken aback by Fischer's push for the retention of this particular veto right, given that he has campaigned for more qualified majority voting in areas such as foreign policy, defense and taxation. These portfolios are viewed by many members, especially Britain, as crucial to national sovereignty, and it appears London will get its way, despite energetic efforts by the vice president of the convention, Giuliano Amato, who said veto rights undermined the scope for compromise.

Speaking to Deutsche Welle, Amato said, "If I have my veto power, I don't care about reaching an agreement. I don't move, I don't go towards the others. If I understand that a decision might be taken by majority voting, I feel interested and motivated in looking for an agreement with the others, and an agreement is eventually reached."

Amato added that it was time Europeans realized that decisions taken by majority voting by the Council of Ministers did not automatically threaten their national identity.

European Commissioner, Günther Verheugen, who belongs to Germany's Social Democrats, said the EU could only advance its international interests by abolishing veto rights on foreign policy decisions. In an interview with the German TV news station, n-tv, he said "In addition to a European Foreign Minister, who develops initiatives, we also need a procedure that guarantees that in future crises, we can say to the Americans what the European position is." But those calls appear to have fallen on deaf ears.

Rome signing in doubt

Once the convention completes its deliberations, a conference of EU government leaders will take over the job of finalizing the draft. Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, says he aims to have the constitution formally adopted in a signing ceremony in Rome, echoing the Treaty of Rome, which established the EU's forerunner, the European Economic Community, in 1958.

But the chances of the constitution being signed, sealed and delivered during Italy's presidency appear to be growing slimmer by the day, especially as the controversy over anti-German remarks made by Berlusconi and a junior minister responsible for tourism, Stefano Stefani, refuses to die down.

The Financial Times Deutschland has quoted EU sources in Brussels as saying Ireland, which assumes the six-month rotating presidency in January, is already planning for the contingency that Italy fails to get the constitution in the bag before the end of the year. It quotes a diplomat in Brussels as saying Dublin's worst case scenario is that the Italian government will fall apart by year's end. It goes on to say that even the Netherlands, who take charge after Ireland, are making emergency plans.

In Germany, the opposition neo-liberal Free Democratic Party has said it does not believe Italy is a suitable place for the signing of the constitution, given the latest outbursts. European affairs spokeswoman Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said the furore would cast a shadow over the constitution. She added that she considered it unlikely that the conference of government leaders would get the job done by December. She said it was more likely that the accord would end up as the Treaty of Dublin.