As the Nice inter-governmental conference staggered into the early hours of Monday morning, compromises in the key areas necessary for agreement emerged. As bleary eyed ministers left after a marathon four day summit, Tony Blair claimed the British government had secured what it had wanted from the summit.

However, two areas delayed agreement, the vexed issue of qualified majority voting and a last minute revolt of the "small" countries over the balance of vote "weighting" on the EU council.

Qualified Majority Voting: Although nearly 90 per cent of EU decisions are already taken by QMV, French proposals to "raise" the veto on border controls, the political "hot potatoes" of asylum and immigration, taxation, and social security were to be a step too far for the UK, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden and Ireland.

The French preserved a national veto on broadcasting - the sensitive "cultural" issue of how many non-EU films can be broadcast in the country - although QMV is set to be extended to telecoms, financial services, travel and tourism.

With both Sweden - the next country to hold EU presidency - and the UK holding firm over vetoes on tax and social security, Tony Blair and Robin Cook made it clear on Saturday that they were prepared to see the IGC fail rather than give up their now well known "red lines". Whether there has been compromise on any other QMV areas remains to be seen as the detail of the treaty emerges but Britain's other "red line" areas of treaty changes, borders, defence and raising EU revenue appear to have been left intact. Official EU secretariat figures show that at the end of negotiations QMV had been extended to 23 new treaty articles although other sources in the British delegation have put the figure at 39.

European commission: The five biggest countries - the UK, Italy, France, Germany and Spain - are to give up their two commissioners in 2005, with the EU then rotating reduced commission places among a possible 27 member states.

This means that the big five must accept that for a five-year commission term they might not have a commissioner in place, this was acceptable once the question of vote "weighting" on the council was resolved.

Vote "weighting" on the council of the European Union: A deal to base votes roughly on the size of countries, including the wave of new countries seeking accession, would give a range of votes from three for countries like Cyprus and Malta to 30 for Germany, France, the UK and Italy. The total number of votes, in an enlarged union, would be 337 and a "qualified majority" achieved with 247 votes, representing 58 per cent of the union.

European parliament: Germany will stand to have the greatest number of MEPs (99) in an enlarged union reflecting its size in a parliament of 738 members - the number of MEPs currently stand at 626. The UK would have 74.

"Post-Nice" IGC: A key concession to Germany and Italy, is a post-Nice IGC that will take up the constitutional issues that are involved in differing visions of the union's future. A key new battleground is set to be the charter of fundamental rights. The charter, presently having a "declamatory" rather than legally binding existence, is rapidly becoming the next political football between euro-integrationists and the UK.