Paris has already made clear it is is not giving up attempts to move to more majority voting despite the obvious problems. Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden all share Mr Blair's refusal to surrendering the veto on tax. Britain also dismissed a French call for a proposed network of European public prosecutors, dubbed Eurojust and intended to enhance judicial cooperation, to be mentioned in the treaty. Germany is a keen supporter of more majority voting, but it insists on keeping its veto on immigration and asylum matters. France wants to keep its veto in matters concerning trade in services and intellectual property.
Majority voting is just one of the items that have to be resolved at Nice.
These issues touch on the enormously sensitive question of how much power and influence governments have in policy-making, and were so difficult to resolve that they were left over after the 1997 Amsterdam treaty. Agreement is needed at the summit to avert paralysis in decision making as the union starts to admit up to a dozen new members, mostly from ex-communist eastern and central Europe.