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The EU's economic convergence plans are forcing Denmark to reconsider its euro opt-out, with a referendum on "modernising" Copenhagen's relation with Brussels possibly taking place by June. With plans for a "Competitiveness Pact" currently being drafted by EU institutions to replace a Franco-German draft on pensions harmonisation and constitutional "debt brakes", Denmark does not want to be left out of the decision-making process, due to not being in the single currency.

Dubbed the "Big Bang model", a referendum on all three opt-outs may be more successful than holding a referendum just on euro adoption, with 45 percent of Danes in favour of this move, according to a Megafon poll carried out in February. But the margin is still narrow, with 43 percent opposing it and 12 percent undecided. A strong advocate for Denmark's euro-accession is Belgian Liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt, who points to the fact that the country's economy is already fully integrated into the eurozone and that the Danish krone is pegged to the euro. In addition, he believes that there is a need for a small country like Denmark to counter-balance Germany and France who "dictated" the competitiveness pact being currently drafted for the 17 member-strong eurozone.

Europe's Socialist leaders have proposed a ‘growth pact' as an alternative to the ‘competitiveness pact' originally proposed by France and Germany as a solution to the bloc's economic woes. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann and most of the continent's social democratic leaders, many of whom currently sit on opposition benches in their parliaments, including French Socialist leader Martine Aubry and Germany's head of the SPD, Sigmar Gabriel, met at a summit in Athens to co-ordinate their strategy ahead of an EU summit where a ‘comprehensive response' to the eurozone crisis is to be finalised.

The centre-left leaders endorsed a plan that still backs austerity, but alongside it the introduction of a financial transactions tax that they say would deliver €250 billion a year to European coffers that could be invested in green technologies and infrastructure.

EU commissioner Olli Rehn, in charge of enlargement, said the Macedonian government should see the move as "very strong encouragement" to "finally settle the name issue," however. The reference concerns an 18-year old dispute between Macedonia and neighbouring Greece about the use of the name Macedonia. Croatia, hoping to join the EU in 2011, is "nearing the finishing line" after years of negotiations, said Mr Rehn, but needs to further tackle corruption and organised crime "before negotiations can be concluded." The commission report urges Turkey to do more to ensure freedom of expression and freedom of religion as well as bolster the rights of women and trade unions. Ankara has been lagging far behind Zagreb in its EU progress in part due to poor relations with EU member Cyprus, with whom it still has to fully implement a customs agreement. Progress is also slow due to a lack of enthusiasm on the part of several member states for Turkish membership and the pace of Turkish domestic reform.

Of the remaining five entities - Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo - that want to join the EU, Mr Rehn had the most to say about Bosnia and Herzegovina. The war-torn country was recently given an ultimatum by the EU and the US to sort out internal problems between Bosnian Muslims, Croats and Serbs by 20 October. Defining the country as of "paramount importance for the region and for the European Union," Mr Rehn said that Bosnia and Herzegovina could only consider an application for EU membership once it "can stand on its own two feet." "No quasi-protectorate can join the EU," he said, spelling out that the Office of High Representative would have to be closed down first. The post was created as part of the peace deal that ended the 1992-1995 war in the country, and can only be closed after a positive international assessment. Meanwhile, the Serbian government, which is being pushed to arrest two war crimes suspects from the 1990s, was praised for being "stable" and "demonstrating" a high degree of consensus on EU integration as a strategic priority." But even as the EU tries to bind all of the countries of the western Balkans and Turkey ever more closely through political and economic ties and the promise of eventual membership, there are continuous doubts about whether it has the political appetite to go through with another large round of expansion. Apart from Croatia, strongly supported by Germany and where EU membership is virtually assured, internal EU question marks remain over the rest.

Three EU states will in a UN court case in December argue that Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence was illegal. But EU officials say the judges' decision will not impact Kosovo's "irreversible" new status. Spain, Romania and Cyprus will join Serbia and Russia in giving anti-Kosovo depositions during hearings from 1 to 11 December at the UN's top legal body, the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Spain, Romania and Cyprus together with Slovakia and Greece declined to recognise Kosovo's independence last year. But the group of three's involvement in The Hague procedure marks a shift from passive to active resistance against Kosovo statehood. With Germany, France, the UK, the Netherlands and the US set to make pro-Kosovo statements at the UN hearings, the verdict, which is expected in early 2010, could go either way.

Germany's new conservative-liberal coalition has decided to support 'open-ended' EU-Turkey negotiations and favour a 'privileged partnership' in case they fail, it emerged on Wednesday. The deal is a compromise between calls to reject Ankara's EU bid, coming from chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian sister party (CSU) and the Turkey-favourable stance of her liberal junior partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

Ms Merkel was a strong supporter of the 'privileged partnership' before becoming chancellor. She now maintains that Turkey must fulfil accession criteria and also that the EU has to honour its commitments. But if negotiations were to fail, the coalition agreement is likely to say that Turkey could be offered a 'privileged partnership.' The wording of the coalition agreement is very similar to the one Ms Merkel negotiated with her former government partner, the Social Democratic Party.

The European Commission (EC) last week gave a thumbs-up to Serbia's implementation of European standards on the road to EU membership and called on the Union to implement its Interim Trade Agreement with Serbia. Serbia signed the accord and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU in April 2008. Both agreements were suspended pending Serbia's full co-operation with The Hague tribunal. Currently, the only EU member blocking the Interim Trade Agreement is the Netherlands, which demands that fugitive Ratko Mladic be apprehended and extradited.

Serbia, however, still has some work to do. The country must take a more constructive stance on Kosovo, pass the Vojvodina Statute, combat corruption and crime, continue with judiciary reforms, enhance the rights of minorities, and help bring those that attack journalists, human rights activists and members of the gay and lesbian population to justice. Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the Serbian Progressive Party, also noted that European officials reprimanded Serbia's excessive budget spending, adding that if the trend continues, "Serbia will be heavily indebted with no advantage of becoming an EU member." Tanja Miscevic, head of the Serbian EU Integration Office from 2005 to 2008, also expressed restraint in assessing the report.

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Too big to run? Analysing the impact of enlargement on the speed of EU decision-making Robin Hertz ETH Zürich, Switzerland, robin.hertz@eup.gess.ethz.ch Dirk Leuffen University of Konstanz, Germany Abstract The article analyses how enlargements affect the speed of European Union (EU) decision-making. In line with rationalist theories of group choice, we argue that enlargements increase the costs of organizing decisions, i.e. transaction costs. Increasing transaction costs, in turn, slow down EU law-making. We test this theory by estimating Cox regression models that incorporate time-varying covariates on all directives, regulations and decisions submitted by the European Commission between 1976 and 2006. In contrast to previous analyses, we show that an increase in group size indeed slows down EU law-making.