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With just a month to go until Ireland's second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, a poll has shown that 46 percent support a yes vote, down eight points since May.

Published by the Irish Times, the TNS mrbi poll shows a rise of one point in those saying they plan to vote No to 29 percent with the Don't Knows registering at 25 percent, up seven points in comparison to a pre-summer survey.

For his part, Mr Cowen has met with the main opposition parties to work out how to make the most effective Yes campaign ahead of the 2 October poll.

He has also tried to persuade to voters to rise above their feelings for the government and concentrate on the issue at hand in the referendum.

"I don't believe this is about the future of this government or the future of personalities, it's about the future of the country. This is not politics as usual. It goes beyond any issues of party, organisation or locality. It is about our country's future," said the prime minister on Wednesday (2 September).

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

Irish Europe minister Dick Roche has said there was "serious external interference" in the run-up to the country's referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

The minister made the comment after Ireland's ethics watchdog published a report Friday (13 March) saying that Libertas, which last year led a successful campaign against the EU's Lisbon treaty, did not reveal enough information on its referendum campaign.

Reacting to the report, Europe minister Dick Roche, who has a long-running feud with Mr Ganley, was quoted by the Irish Times as saying:

"It raises real issues regarding the extent of foreign interference channelled via Libertas into the referendum campaign. The report demonstrates the need for an immediate strengthening of the law."

"It confirms questions raised by me and others about the role of US defence contractor Rivada Networks Ltd and its Irish office. It contains and confirms that there was serious external interference in Ireland's referendum campaign from Mr Ganley's eurosceptic contacts via the Libertas campaign."

In the run-up to the June referendum last year, Ireland was awash with speculation that Libertas was being funded from US sources opposed to European integration.

A new poll has shown a swing in favour of the Lisbon treaty in Ireland as the main political parties argue about when would be the best time to hold a second referendum on the document.

According to a survey carried out by the Irish Times newspaper, 51 percent are in favour of the treaty while 33 percent would vote against it.

Analysis of the results suggests it is farmers and middle-class voters who have shifted their opinion towards a Yes since the referendum in June last year.

Meanwhile, the least well off tend to be opposed to the treaty.

The swing in Lisbon's favour comes amid the country's convulsions in the economic crisis, which has caused massive job losses.

Poland will not complete the final step of ratification for the EU's Lisbon treaty until after Ireland has had its second referendum on the document, the Polish president has reiterated.

While noting that his country does not intend to be an obstacle to the bloc's ratification of the text, Lech Kaczynski said he would only sign off on the treaty if Irish citizens say Yes in the new vote, expected in autumn.

The president's tough stance comes despite the Polish parliament's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday passing a resolution for him to yield.

"The parliament requests the president to respect the will of both houses of parliament and to finish the process of ratification as quickly as possible," the resolution - which is to be voted on in plenary on Thursday - says, according to Rzeczpospolita.

Nearly half of Slovenians would take part in a referendum on Croatia's EU membership and most would reject their neighbour's entry into the 27-national bloc, a new survey has shown.

The poll, published in Croatian weekly Globus on Wednesday (14 January), indicates that 48.2 percent of Slovenians would vote in a referendum on Croatia's EU membership, while 31.5 percent would not.

Some 47.5 percent of those asked would be against Croatia's EU entry, while 36.8 percent would support it.

Slovenia has repeatedly raised the threat of a referendum if the two countries do not manage to solve the border dispute they have been locked in since they each broke away from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

Ljubljana accuses Zagreb of claiming an illegitimate share of the Adriatic Sea close to the Slovenian city of Piran.

An early election by Mr Brown - the last date by which the government has to call an election is June 2010 - would hand the Conservatives an opportunity to derail the EU's latest treaty, although it has already been ratified by British Parliament and approved by the queen.

Britain's Conservative Party, which is generally eurosceptic, is a strong opponent of Lisbon and has long campaigned to hold a referendum on the document.

A new poll suggests that a majority of Irish voters may back the Lisbon Treaty in a second referendum set to be held this year.

The Sunday Independent / Quantum Research survey carried out last Friday showed that 55 per cent of the 500 people asked would support the treaty while 37 per cent said they would oppose it and 15 per cent said they were undecided.

The Czech EU presidency is to begin the complicated task of providing the legal guarantees for the political concessions that Ireland has received on the rejected Lisbon Treaty.

Work will soon begin between Irish lawyers, the legal services of the Council (representing member states) and the European Commission, to firm up EU promises to that the treaty will not affect Irish neutrality, abortion or tax laws.

A 200-page coalition agreement indicates that the government will fall if one party decides to push for a referendum on a new EU treaty. The Austrian Parliament ratified the Lisbon Treaty in April 2008 amid calls for a referendum from the right-wing opposition. 

The prospective new chancellor, Werner Faymann (SPÖ), insists that a nationwide referendum should be held on any new EU treaty. But his future Deputy Chancellor Joseph Proell (ÖVP) insists that no referendum should occur against his party's wil

Irish Taoisach Brian Cowen said his government is consulting with EU council legal services on drafting possible "opt-outs" to the Lisbon treaty, speaking after an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday (17 October).

"We are prepared to go into that process in good faith," he said, the Irish Times reports, with the structure of the European Commission, EU military integration, taxation and civil rights the likely areas of concern.

The Irish leader also underlined his personal support for the Lisbon document and used Iceland's financial meltdown to show the benefits of EU and eurozone membership.

"There is a huge body of opinion - not shared by the Irish people as things stand - that sees the need for stronger institutions, for better decision-making processes, for more effective decision-making to make sure we can deal with challenges that transcend national boundaries," Mr Cowen said.

"I wouldn't like to think what the situation would be if we ended up like them [Iceland] with our own currency," he added. "The access to the resources of the ECB [European Central Bank] far outweighs the resources of the Irish central bank or Iceland's central bank."

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.