Among areas where unanimity could be abolished are culture industry and the environment says a draft proposal on

Among areas where unanimity could be abolished are culture, industry and the environment, says a draft proposal on European Union reform published yesterday by the Netherlands, which holds the presidency. It also sets out the first detailed plans for building a hard-core Europe, using "flexibility". It suggests the veto may not be maintained for "flexibility", which means Britain could lose the power to stop other countries speeding ahead. Two options are set out under which hard-core countries could proceed after agreement by qualified majority Only one option is presented for voting by unanimity. The document confirms British fears that other states are determined to find ways of speeding integration without being held back by objectors.

It will form the basis of tough negotiating before final decisions at the European summit in Amsterdam in June.Under one option, fast-track power-sharing could be applied to several core areas of policy-making, listed as economic and monetary union, including indirect taxation; environmental standards; health and safety of workers and areas of immigration and justice policy.Applying flexibility to EMU is important to several member-states keen to ensure countries which join the single currency should have the power to use fast-track decisions, to speed future economic integration. Several member-states envisage a need for greater harmonisation of tax and social security once the single currency is running.The last chance they have to secure a treaty change, creating this power, before the launch of monetary union will be in June. In perhaps their most ground-breaking initiative, the Dutch supported the drive for speedier integration within the Euro-zone. They insisted the veto would, in general, never be lifted for policy-making on direct taxation, regional funding and constitutional matters.The European Commission has been reluctant to accept application of flexibility to areas in the "first pillar" of EU decision making, which includes EMU, for fear the entire union would fragment as a result.However, it is clear the phrasing in the Dutch document is broad enough to allow countries to adopt fast-track "flexible" decision-making in any areas of EMU policy-making they choose, including direct tax and social security.John Major has insisted Britain would not give up the veto in any new policy areas and Tony Blair has said Labour would accept an extension of qualified majority voting (QMV) to limited areas, citing industry, research, social policy and environment.

Several of the 25 areas listed in the Dutch document as a "working basis" for extension of QMV are highly technical, such as development of research and training, and laws governing professions.Mr Major has favoured flexibility in principle but insisted Britain should have the right to veto any decision by core groups of countries to move ahead alone.r Strasbourg - The European Commission president, Jacques Santer, fighting to avoid censure for the way it handled the "mad-cow crisis, offered the European Parliament the right of veto over EU health policy, Reuter reports.. Britain's Foreign Secretary sets off on a journey to the heart of Europe today, carrying an anti-federalist message to the citizens of federal Germany. Malcolm Rifkind's stated purpose is to address the people of Europe directly, above the heads of their governments, and warn them of nefarious plans to rob them of their power. The German government, he is expected to tell an audience in Bonn, is proposing changes to the Maastricht treaty that would remove popular control over many aspects of daily life and would inevitably lead to a super-state. Judging from the statements Mr Rifkind has already given to the German press, there will be little room for diplomatic niceties in his speech."What we will not accept - and many millions of Europeans are with us - is the attempt to create a United States of Europe," the Foreign Secretary said in an interview to be published today by Bild, the country's biggest tabloid.The push towards a US of E is coming from Bonn, he will tell Germans. Their government's proposals at the Inter-Governmental Conference are designed to achieve this aim, and if Germany were to prevail in its arguments, elected national par- liaments would be sidelined.Mr Rifkind will refute accusations that Britain is interested in the EU only as a free-trade zone. He will stress that London will tolerate integration outside the economic domain only if it is practicable and does not lead to further centralisation.

"There are limits, national sensibilities and a bottom line," diplomatic sources said.The boundaries have been marked out in inter- governmental haggling behind closed doors for the past year, and now the Foreign Secretary plans to bring them into the open. Britain is vehemently opposed to the abolition of member states' right of veto in home affairs and justice, and in foreign and security policy.Mr Rifkind will read out a list of German proposals which he considers anathema. Apart from trying to extend majority voting, Bonn is accused of striving for a greater role for the European Parliament - to be elected on a common electoral system; a Continent-wide police authority; a more powerful European Court of Justice; and further integration of defence.The Foreign Secretary will not to delve into the discrepancy between Bonn's ambitions and the shallowness of its pockets, though he is expected to mention "real issues" such as unemployment. What gloating there is can be gleaned from his Bild interview, in which he contrasts Germany's record jobless rate with Britain's, singling out the Social Chapter for particular odium.Lira falls, page 19. Copenhagen - Gazing down over the Danish Parliament a tall, elegant woman stands in her office, at the top of the national Bank of Denmark, musing about the evolution of the Danish "social model". Why is it that Danes are prepared to pay such high taxes, and to let the state distribute their wealth? Nothing symbolises the special Danish way of doing things more than the fact that the country has placed two women in charge of its money. Bodil Nyboe Andersen is governor of the Bank of Denmark, and Marianne Jelved is economics minister. "It is true we probably have the most egalitarian society in Europe," says Mrs Nyboe Andersen "But I can't answer why it happened this way here.

It just did - it is an evolution which has lasted more than 150 years. It is a question of faith - do you think one way is better than the other. We are not saying ours should be copied."So what would happen to the Danish model if the country joined the single currency and succumbed to economic and monetary harmonisation? Those matters, Mrs Nyboe Andersen says, are "political" - a ruse, used by many Danes in sensitive positions, to avoid answering the big question: will Denmark join economic and monetary union?The answer, on the face of it, is clearly no. The Danes, like the British, secured an opt-out from the single currency after Maastricht. But the Danes went even further than Britain - they chose to exercise the opt- out, deciding not to enter at the 1999 launch.As the deadline approaches, however, some believe Danish resolve to remain out of EMU is faltering.