Prof. Dr Wolfgang Schumann's Bookmarks tagged eu-policy_memberstates →  View Popular

Political analysts have underlined that the EU was lucky to have a country as big as France at its helm during the Georgia crisis as this tempered the lack of real EU leadership. 

"The EU was lucky France held the EU Presidency, because Russia agreed to engage with Mr. Sarkozy on the ceasefire. But they may not have engaged with the EU if a smaller country such as the Czech Republic were EU president, especially with its difficult bilateral relationship with Moscow as a result of its decision to host US missile defence," said Antonio Missiroli, the director of the European Policy Centre, quoted in The Irish Times. 

Even the Polish President, who in the recent past called the Lisbon Treaty "pointless" and said he would not sign it (EurActiv 01/07/08), spoke a very different language after the summit. 

Asked by EurActiv if he was now more in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, Kaczynski conceded that indeed, several EU leaders had mentioned informally that the Lisbon Treaty would have given the EU better instruments to deal with challenges such as the current Georgia crisis. He then added that Ireland should hold a second referendum. 

The talks on a new treaty defining the EU relations with Russia were scheduled to take place later this month, but pressed by the demand of several member states, it was decided this would be tied to Russian withdrawal from Georgia.

The postponement modifies a previously circulated draft version of the summit's conclusion that took a softer stance on the issue of talks.

Poland – one of the countries pushing for the suspension – hailed the final declaration as a victory and insisted its position was not isolated.

"We were not alone, we were acting within a group," including also the Czech Republic, the Baltic States - Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, the UK and Sweden, Polish President Lech Kaczynski told journalists.

EU foreign ministers on Wednesday (13 August) agreed to send peacekeepers to help supervise the fragile Russia-Georgia ceasefire, putting off discussions on potential diplomatic sanctions against Russia until next month.

"The European Union must be prepared to commit itself, including on the ground," the EU joint statement said, asking EU top diplomat Javier Solana to draft more detailed proposals for the ministers' next meeting on 5 September.

"The European Union will want to consider how it proceeds with the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement," UK foreign minister, David Miliband, said. "The sight of Russian tanks in Gori, Russian tanks in Senaki, a Russian blockade of Poti, the Georgian port are a chilling reminder of times that I think we had hoped had gone by."

The Polish and Lithuanian ministers echoed the British position.

"Of course some consequences must appear of the aggression," Lithuanian foreign minister, Petras Vaitiekunas, said. "There was clearly disproportionate force used by the Russians," Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski added.

The French EU presidency is expected to endorse the Russia-Georgia ceasefire, offer humanitarian aid and urge EU unity in a statement after an EU foreign ministers meeting on Wednesday (13 August), with Paris keen to avoid controversy on who to blame for the crisis.

Preparatory discussions by EU diplomats on Tuesday saw a group of former communist states speak in "sharp language" about Russia, but the tone was "less radical than they used for their domestic press," one diplomat who attended the debates told EUobserver.

The Finnish autonomous Aland Islands are causing headaches for the Finnish government by demanding certain concessions from Helsinki in return for ratifying the EU's Lisbon Treaty.

The local government in the capital Mariehamn has said it will ratify the bloc's latest institutional rule book only if it gets the nod for four demands, with the vote in the Aland 30-member strong parliament expected in the autumn.

President Klaus - by far the most outspoken eurosceptic in Central-Europe - made no secret of his pleasure at the Irish No. While the office of the Czech president is largely honorary, his signature is needed to round up the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty. But Mr Klaus's bark is often worse than his bite. It is very unlikely he will risk being scapegoat of the entire EU by blocking the ratification after a positive vote in parliament.

More significant however is the fact the president still has considerable influence on a large segment of the Civic Democratic Party. After the Irish referendum the harsh language of Mr Klaus was echoed by several party members. CDP holds a majority in the Czech Senate where voting on the Lisbon Treaty still needs to take place.

But the situation for the new Kosovo passport holders remains less clear, as Slovakia, Malta, Spain, Cyprus, Portugal, Greece and Romania have not recognised the new state.

"We do not recognise an independent Kosovo, so we will also not recognise their documents. We will continue to recognise substitute passports issued by the UN administration and Serbian passports," a Slovak interior ministry spokesman told Slovak newspaper Sme earlier this month.

The Irish government is considering calling a second Lisbon treaty referendum in autumn 2009 after securing concessions on the number of commissioners, abortion, taxation and military neutrality, a major Irish daily reports.

Under the plan, the re-vote in September or October next year would come after the June 2009 European Parliament elections, meaning the total number of MEPs would go down from 785 to 736, instead of 751 as envisaged by Lisbon.

Almost three quarters of Irish voters are opposed to the idea of a second vote on the EU's Lisbon treaty, according to a fresh poll.

The survey, revealed on Sunday (27 July), was commissioned by the London-based eurosceptic think-tank Open Europe, and carried out among 1,000 respondents between 21 and 23 July, shortly after a visit by French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Dublin.

Ratification map

Twenty out of 27 EU states have definitively ratified the EU treaty. Spain, Germany and Poland's parliaments have approved the text but the respective heads of state must still sign off on the document, with the German constitutional court still considering a legal challenge.

The Italian lower house is expected to back the text this week. Swedish MPs are set to pass the treaty without serious opposition when they begin their autumn session in September. And Czech deputies are planning to hold a vote in autumn, after the verdict of the country's constitutional court on a legal appeal.

Mea culpa 

Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said Bulgaria deserved to be criticised in the Commission's report, the Bulgarian press reported. 

"There are grounds for criticism, to be honest," Stanishev told the press in the Black Sea city of Varna. “The truth is Bulgaria is learning how to work with European money," he added. 

The opposition has attacked the government, including over Bulgaria’s decline compared to Romania. A no-confidence motion is expected to be voted upon in Parliament today, but the coalition government controls 150 out of 240 MPs and is expected to survive. 

More interestingly, a poll showed that a majority of Bulgarians were siding with the Commission and believe that the EU should indeed freeze its subsidies. The perception among ordinary citizens, shows the study by the Alpha Research Institute, is that this money is not reaching them. Thus many Bulgarians welcome funding cuts as a way of hurting the corrupt political class. 

The Italian senate's unanimous support for the Lisbon treaty on Wednesday (23 July) should help force Ireland into a revote, Italian politicians have said, with Ireland looking increasingly likely to stand out as the only EU country not to ratify the text.

"If ratification takes place in the other 26 states, in the autumn we will be able to ask Ireland to find a solution which will not block the integration process and go to the European elections with the new rules foreseen in the Lisbon treaty," the senate's foreign affairs committee head, Lamberto Dini, indicated.

Twenty one out of 27 EU states have definitively ratified the EU treaty despite the Irish No vote in a referendum in June. The Spanish, German and Polish parliaments have also approved the text, which now awaits the signatures of the respective heads of state.

The Swedish parliament is set to pass the treaty without serious opposition when it begins its autumn session in September. Czech Prime Minister Miroslav Topolanek this week pledged the full support of his divided ODS party when parliament votes in autumn.

Bulgaria could face further sanctions in the area of justice and home affairs, including having its membership of the EU's borderless Schengen area delayed, after recent reports from Brussels highlighted the country's problem with corruption.

A group of member states, including the UK, France and the Netherlands is pushing for tougher sanctions against Sofia, Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad reported on Thursday (17 July).

Brussels is to call on Sofia "to cleanse its administration" and make sure that EU money is not "siphoned off by corrupt officials, operating together with organised crime."

Both reports, leaked to the media, have provoked an outcry in Bulgaria and opposition parties have called for a non-confidence vote against the government next week, in addition to starting an impeachment procedure against the president.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned Europe against falling into institutional paralysis in the wake of Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon treaty and said he hopes to propose a solution to the situation before the end of this year.

In a passionate speech in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday (10 July), Mr Sarkozy said that nothing was worse for him than "immobility" and stressed the EU should not let itself be paralysed because of yet another "institutional psycho-drama."

Paris' "absolute priority" in the next six months will be tackling climate change, notably by pushing for the adoption of legislative proposals on how to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent by 2020 – a goal agreed by EU leaders last year.

Harmonising the 27 member states' immigration policies and strengthening the bloc's defence capacity are the other main policy areas outlined by the president.

Mr Kaczynski is fighting to win oversight powers on Polish government behaviour in EU negotiations and to get government approval to host a US missile shield. The Lisbon row also generates momentum for his flagging conservative opposition party, as campaigning slowly begins for the 2009 European Parliament elections.

"If Lech Kaczynski signs the treaty it will be a victory for [Polish liberal Prime Minister Donald] Tusk. So the president wants his own victory by winning concessions from the liberals," Polish Institute of Political Sciences analyst Kazimierz Kik told AFP.