European Union

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has sided with smaller member states in trying to restrict the role of the proposed president of the European Council, a new post created by the Lisbon Treaty. Addressing the European Parliament on Wednesday (7 October), Mr Barroso chastised MEPs for referring to the post as "president of Europe."

"I am sorry, there will not be a president of Europe. There will be, if we have Lisbon, the president of the European Council. It is important to understand that point because sometimes I think there are some ideas about certain derives institutionelles [institutional drifts]," he said.

The commission president has no formal powers in appointing the European Council president but he warned: "The European Commission will not accept the idea that the president of European Council is the president of Europe." Mr Barroso's remarks came shortly after a leaked paper on the new Lisbon Treaty posts by Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg underlined the importance of maintaining the "institutional balance" of the union. The paper has been interpreted in some quarters as an anti-Blair move. Poland has also prepared a document on the role of the president of the European Council. Earlier this week, Polish Europe minister Mikolaj Dowgielewicz indicated to EUobserver the limited role that Warsaw foresees for the new president.

Ankara believes that stalled negotiations on Turkey's EU accession can be unblocked swiftly if the Cyprus talks make headway, the minister of European affairs and Turkey's chief EU negotiator, Egemen Bagiş, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

Five chapters of Turkey's EU accession negotiations are currently being blocked by France, while three are being held by Austria and Germany.  The chief negotiator said his country had been promised full membership and was therefore requesting "nothing less, nothing more".  "I checked the 100,000-page acquis," Bagiş said, referring to the EU's lengthy body of approved legislation. "There's nothing besides membership. There is no alternative to membership. It doesn't exist."  "What President Sarkozy used to say […] does not exist," stressed Bagiş, adding that "his colleagues promised me not to use those insulting, those horrible phrases again".  Although he insisted that the Cyprus problem was not directly related to Turkey's accession negotiations, he admitted that a positive development in the island's reunification talks could lead to an unblocking of Turkey's negotiating chapters. 

Croatia made "substantial progress" by opening six and closing five negotiating chapters with the EU, said Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn after a meeting between representatives of Croatia, Slovenia and the EU on Friday (2 October). But Zagreb recognised the difficulty of the challenges ahead in its accession talks, especially in justice and home affairs.

The conference, led on the EU side by Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister Carl Bildt, and on the Croatian side by Gordan Jandrokovi, minister of foreign affairs and European integration, opened negotiations on six chapters: Chapter 4 (Free Movement of Capital), Chapter 11 (Agriculture and Rural Development), Chapter 12 (Food Safety, Veterinary and Phytosanitary Policy), Chapter 16 (Taxation), Chapter 22 (Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments), and Chapter 24 (Justice, Freedom and Security). It also provisionally closed five other chapters: Chapter 2 (Free Movement of Workers), Chapter 6 (Company Law), Chapter 18 (Statistics), Chapter 21 (Trans-European Networks) and Chapter 29 (Customs Union). Rehn insisted that the reopening of the negotiations, which now comprise a total of eleven chapters, represent a crucial step in Croatia's accession process.

Links European Union Council of the European Union: Eighth meeting of the Accession Conference at ministerial level with Croatia (2 October 2009)

The Swedish EU Presidency is today (7 October) expected to apply maximum pressure on the Czech Republic to ratify the Lisbon Treaty, riding on a wave of positive developments after the Irish 'yes' vote, including the removal of a hurdle by the Czech constitutional court on Tuesday.

The Czech Republic's Constitutional Court rejected on Tuesday a challenge against a law related to the EU's reform treaty, lifting a secondary hurdle to the pact's final ratification in the country.  A group of senators close to Eurosceptic President Václav Klaus had complained against an amendment of the parliament's rules of procedure which requires both Houses to approve any potential shift of national competences to Brussels by a simple majority vote, insisting that a qualified majority vote is required instead. 

The heads of the EU's three main institutions on Wednesday (7 September) came together to point out to Czech President Vaclav Klaus the "costs" to Europe if he continues to delay ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, the union's new rulebook. European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek and Fredrik Reinfeldt, the Swedish Prime Minister and the current chair of the EU, said several pending decisions are awaiting clarification from Prague.

The uncertainty stems from the fact that the Czech constitutional court is examining a legal challenge to the Lisbon Treaty, lodged by senators close to Mr Klaus. It is unclear how quickly the court will make its decision and, if the decision is positive, how much later Mr Klaus would then sign the treaty, completing ratification. Time is pressing because the current commission's mandate expires at the end of October, as does the post of the current high representative for foreign affairs, held by Javier Solana. The Swedish presidency is nervous about entering uncharted legal territory. It can either keep the commission as a caretaker, but ineffectual, executive, or try to set up a new commission under the Lisbon Treaty rules. Another option would be to negotiate a new commission with the current rules, but that would mean unwanted negotiations on reducing its size.

EU heads of state and government will have to make difficult choices when they meet in Brussels for a summit on 29-30 October, with uncertainty over when the Lisbon Treaty will come into force having huge consequences for the size of the next European Commission, analysts told EurActiv.

Background: According to pro-EU politicians, Europe is in a "completely new" situation after the resounding 'yes' vote in the second Irish Lisbon Treaty referendum, held last Friday (EurActiv 03/10/09).  At present, 25 out of 27 EU member states have ratified the Union's reform treaty, and the news from Poland is that its president, Lech Kaczyński, will soon sign the ratification by the country's parliament, completing the procedure in that country too.  All eyes are now turning to the Czech Republic, where a group of 17 Eurosceptic senators close to the country's president, Václav Klaus, filed a second complaint against the Lisbon Treaty with the constitutional court in Prague, putting its ratification on hold (EurActiv 30/09/09).  This strategy is seen as an attempt to delay final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty until a conservative government comes to power in Britain, where elections are due next year.  Tory leader David Cameron, who leads comfortably in opinion polls, said that in the event that the Lisbon Treaty is not fully ratified by then, he will call a referendum in the UK, despite the fact that the country has already ratified the treaty in parliament (EurActiv 24/09/09). 

On the one hand, EU leaders can assume that the Lisbon Treaty will soon be ratified and invite member states to submit candidacies for commissioners and other top jobs. Alternatively, they can choose to avoid taking any risks and launch a procedure for nominating a smaller-size Commission under the current Nice Treaty, analysts told EurActiv. 

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, said an Irish 'yes' to the Lisbon Treaty would create the legal conditions for future EU enlargements and pleaded passionately for his country's accession to the Union.

Croatia, hoping to be the European Union's next country to join the bloc, resumes membership negotiations on Friday (2 October). The talks are being restarted now that a border dispute between the former Yugoslav nation and its neighbour and EU member state Slovenia is to be put to arbitration overseen by Brussels.

The 27-country bloc and Croatia are expected to open six new chapters of the 35 policy areas that are up for negotiation at an intergovernmental accession conference in the European capital. It is also believed that an additional five may be closed on Friday as well. If the results live up to diplomat expectations, Zagreb will have opened 28 chapters and closed 12 as of the end of the day.

Croatia will open six and close five negotiating chapters with the EU next Friday (2 October), following a vote in the Slovenian parliament to unblock negotiations which had been put on ice over a border dispute between the two former Yugoslav republics.

The parliamentary committee on EU affairs in Ljubljana voted unanimously on Tuesday (29 September) in favour of lifting the veto, the Croatian news agency Hina reported.  The move follows a decision by the two countries' prime ministers, who recently said the border dispute that had poisoned their relations should not present an obstacle to proceeding with Croatia's EU accession negotiations.

Pahor said the draft arbitration agreement was based on a proposal for settling the dispute tabled by EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, which he said mentioned Slovenia's access to the high seas.