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The Lisbon Treaty changes the rules on how decisions are reached by the EU because decision-making has become unwieldy since the accession of 10 countries, mostly from eastern and central Europe, in 2004 and two more in 2007.

It hands more power to the European Parliament, which shares some legislative responsibilities with the European Commission - the EU executive and a powerful regulatory body. Member states' leaders retain a lot of power.

‘Adoption of the Resolution on strategy of the EU enlargement by the European Parliament is an exceptionally positive event for Serbia. Still, future decisions by the EU ministers should not be prejudiced’, Bozidar Djelic, Serbia Deputy Prime Minister for European integration said yesterday.

This moderate reaction to decision by the European Parliament to accept as an obligation the EU enlargement onto the West Balkans and to request from the EU Council urgent unblocking of the transient trade agreement between Serbia and the EU is only on the surface while under it there is a hectic and increasingly successful activity by Serbian diplomacy leading towards filing of application for the EU membership even as early as in 2014.

The decision over unblocking of the SAA is to be made at the EU summit scheduled for December 10. Until then Serbian officials have to do a lot of work.

Thus, within diplomatic initiative in Brussels, Serbia President shall attend the meeting of ministers deciding on visa suspension on November 30. After that the Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic is to meet with his EU counterparts at the OSCE meeting in Athens on December 2. The USA Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is expected to come to the meeting. She recently openly supported unblocking of the SAA with Serbia. A day earlier the Chief prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal Serge Brammertz shall present to the UN Security Council the most positive report ever on cooperation by Serbia with the Hague Tribunal.

Minister Jeremic shall visit Brussels on December 7 and 8 when the EU ministers are to decide on the SAA unblocking. He shall speak at the Summit on December 10.

A day before the summit Deputy Premier Djelic is to meet with the Foreign Minister of Spain, a chairing country and with the EU enlargement commissioner.

Serbia President Boris Tadic said that ‘Serbia shall file application for membership after unblocking of the transient trade agreement’. According to his words the time for candidacy shall come when it is clear that our application is going to be accepted.

The plenary debate in Strasbourg, which lasted three hours, nevertheless primarily focused on outstanding work rather than past achievements. Following the recent publication of the Commission's '2009 Strategy Paper' (EurActiv 15/10/09), the European Parliament prepared a resolution based on a draft by MEP Gabriele Albertini (Italy, EPP). 

147 amendments 

The five-page resolution

has in the meantime been supplemented by a 101-page paper listing 147 amendments

. Many of these concern the formulation of the name of Kosovo, which is still not recognised by six EU countries, the 'name dispute' between Macedonia and Greece, the Cyprus problem and the role of Turkey. 

MEPs are awaiting next week's entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty with impatience as the new institutional rules give the EU assembly a say in an array of new areas, including the EU's money-eating farm policy and its long-term budget.

While the new EU foreign policy chief and council president represents a shake-up for the external face of the bloc, the internal shake-up, placing further substantial co-legislative power into the hands of euro-parliamentarians, is widely seen as the more profound change.

Come 1 December, the parliament will gain a say on, amongst other areas, legal immigration, judicial co-operation in criminal matters, police co-operation, structural funds, services of general economic interest [euro-jargon for public services], structural funds, transport, personal data protection and intellectual property rights.

The rise in legislative powers represents almost a doubling in power, with the instances where deputies will work on proposed laws on an equal footing with member states rising from around 40 to almost 90.

Of these, the most important areas are seen as energy security, common commercial policy and farm policy, with the last policy area accounting - contentiously - for around 40 percent of the EU's budget.

A new European Parliament group that is pro-free market and anti-EU integration unveiled its membership list on Monday (22 June), bringing together 55 MEPs from eight EU states.

Calling itself the "European Conservatives and Reformists Group," the new faction lists "free enterprise," the "sovereign integrity of the nation state" and "probity in the EU institutions" among its principles.

The British Conservative party dominates membership with 26 MEPs, followed by Poland's Law and Justice with 15 deputies and the Czech Republic's ODS party with nine members.

The other five MEPs come from the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Hungary and Latvia.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said his party's victory in Sunday's European elections showed that French people wanted the EU to change and has said he would come up with initiatives in that respect "in the days to come."

In a communique published Monday (8 June) on the French president's website, Mr Sarkozy said that his centre-right UMP party's victory showed French people's "recognition for the work accomplished during the French presidency of the European Union [in the second half of last year] and their support for the efforts undertaken by the government to bring to an end an unprecedented global crisis".

Sweden is to take over the EU chair from the Czech Republic on 1 July until the end of the year. The period coincides with the end of the mandate of the current European Commission, due in October, and follows the European Parliament elections in June.

"Two key players and very important partners of the presidency – the parliament and the commission – will not be fully operational until quite some time into the autumn, which of course complicates matters," Swedish EU minister Cecilia Malmstrom said at a debate organised by Brussels-based think-tank The Centre on Monday (16 March).

To the institutional limbo, she said, should be added the economic crisis and the planned second referendum in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty, set for October

MEPs adopted a resolution on Thursday (12 March) calling on member states to set a date for opening accession talks with Macedonia this year.

In a resolution adopted by MEPs with 478 votes in favour and 92 against, the European Parliament said it "regrets …that, three years after it [Macedonia] was granted the status of candidate for membership of the EU, accession negotiations have not yet started, which is an unsustainable situation having demotivating effects for the country, and risks destabilising the region."

Macedonia was granted the status of EU candidate in December 2005, but accession talks have not been opened ever since, mainly due to Greece.

Athens has refused to recognise its neighbour's constitutional name - the Republic of Macedonia - since it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

Croatia's on-going border dispute with Slovenia must be solved within the next few weeks or the country is unlikely to conclude EU talks by the end of the year as planned, the MEP in charge of the dossier has warned.





In his report on Croatia's EU progress, approved by deputies in the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee on Wednesday (21 January), Austrian Socialist MEP Hannes Swoboda says that the goal of concluding negotiations in 2009 can be achieved, "provided the government of Croatia steps up its efforts to address some of the more sensitive issues linked with the accession process, including fighting organised crime and corruption."






Croatia's premier, Ivo Sanader (l), and EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn (r). (Photo: European Communities, 2008)






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But the MEP told this website that although "in the official report we want to give a clear message that this is still possible," in reality this date is becoming increasingly "difficult to reach."





"Only if the border issue is solved in the coming three to four weeks, then it is possible. Because otherwise, technically there is not enough time to deal with the issues of the chapters."

As of now, Croatia – an EU candidate since 2004 and aiming to become full EU member by 2011 at the latest – has opened 22 chapters of the 35 contained in its accession package, and closed seven.

Referendum – an 'unacceptable' threat

Recently, Slovenia also raised the threat of a referendum on Croatia's EU membership if the border issue is not solved – a move strongly criticised by the Austrian MEP.

The threat is "absolutely counterproductive. Already now with the very negative or relatively negative attitude of the Slovene population – if we can believe opinion polls – I have to see [the idea] very critically," Mr Swoboda said.

Strasbourg urges ratification before June 2009

Meanwhile, the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee approved on Monday a report urging the Irish government to put forward concrete proposals on the way forward after the referendum to ensure that the Lisbon Treaty is ratified before the 2009 European Parliament elections.

The committee also called on Sweden and the Czech Republic to complete their ratification procedures before the end of 2008. The Swedish parliament is expected to pass the treaty on Thursday.

The Czech Republic could be "a bigger problem than Ireland" for the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, German social-democrat MEP Jo Leinen told EUobserver after returning from Prague on a delegation divided by its approach to the problem.

A group of "hardliners in the Senate" and Czech President Vaclav Klaus are playing a "postponing game" on Lisbon, Mr Leinen explained, saying the clique has already ensured Lisbon will not be ratified by the time the Czech republic takes over the EU presidency on 1 January 2009.

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.

With all eyes on the EU leaders' summit in Brussels on Thursday, Janez Lenarcic, secretary of state for European affairs for Slovenia, currently chairing the 27-strong bloc, told MEPs that the continued ratification of the treaty looks likely to be supported by all participants at the top-level meeting.

"The presidency has held talks with countries which have not yet ratified the treaty, and it is quite encouraging to see that those countries are ready to continue the ratification process," said Mr Lenarcic.

The same approach was advocated by the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who argued that the energy the EU had put in to drawing up its internal reform "cannot go to waste."

We have to ask Mr Barroso what kind of people he has in his commission, particularly if you have someone acting as the deregulation Pope in Europe who then goes home and says he hasn't read the treaty and doesn't understand it," Mr Schultz told reporters on Tuesday (17 June).

He was reacting to several statements of Mr McCreevy, who is in charge of internal market in the 27-member-strong European Commission, ahead of the only popular vote on the new EU reform treaty in Ireland held last week, in which the Irish rejected the document.

The commissioner admitted a lack of knowledge of details of the treaty in an interview with the EUobserver, saying he had only read most of a summary of the document.

The German and Polish leaders said Monday that European Union countries should press ahead with ratifying the reform treaty rejected by Irish voters, but vowed not to isolate Ireland as they seek a way out of the crisis.

The charter, meant to replace the failed EU constitution, was rejected in an