European Union

The Netherlands is set to postpone a decision on whether to hold a second referendum on the European constitution until a new version of the text is agreed at EU level. The three Dutch political parties that are in the final stages of forming a new centre-left government on Monday (5 February) broadly endorsed a coalition agreement which leaves the tricky decision of whether to hold a new EU constitution referendum to the country's highest constitutional advisory body, the Council of State.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina | The pending decision on Kosovo’s status and Serbia’s recent election results are consuming what little attention policy-makers give the Balkans these days. But by the end of February, over a decade of international efforts to forge a lasting peace and the ultimate integration of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the European mainstream will come down to one critical set of decisions. Late January saw the overdue and ill-camouflaged firing of Christian Schwarz-Schilling from the top job in the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and as EU special representative in Bosnia. In his face-saving announcement that he had decided not to seek an extension of his mandate, Schwarz-Schilling stated that OHR should not close as scheduled at the end of June. This judgment is almost certainly going to be confirmed in late February, when the Peace Implementation Council, the ad-hoc grouping of governments and international institutions that oversees the OHR, meets in Brussels.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso on Thursday (8 February) urged the Netherlands to start "moving" towards a compromise on the EU constitution. Mr Barroso's trip to The Hague, the first-ever visit of a commission president to the Dutch parliament, came just one day after the publication of a new Dutch coalition agreement which says the Netherlands will seek major changes to the EU constitution, which was rejected by Dutch voters in a 2005 referendum

This week Romania’s president faces impeachment proceedings for his removal from office, the foreign minister has already been driven from his post and the premier is embroiled in political hot water, too. Romania, in other words, is stricken by political upheaval as tensions between President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu reach their peak, undermining reforms and slowing the battle against corruption.

The EU on Monday (12 February) gave its clearest signal yet that it is ready to restart integration talks with Serbia before Belgrade hands over top war crimes fugitives such as Ratko Mladic.

Despite Germany's efforts to conduct negotiations on the EU constitution discreetly, the rifts between member states are spilling out into the open.

The European constitution is something else tied with a Gordian knot. That knot is called ratification or rather the principle whereby each and every member state can hold the others to ransom in regard to its entry into effect. Eighteen member states have already ratified the existing constitutional treaty; three more would probably have little difficulty in doing so, but six remain. Of those six it might be reasonably assumed that three (France, Netherlands and Denmark) could be accommodated with concessions and safeguards. But the other three (the United Kingdom, Poland and the Czech Republic) seem to have grown potentially hostile to the whole constitutional enterprise.

Der Verfassungsvertrag ist in vier Teile gegliedert, die einen sehr unterschiedlichen Charakter und Umfang haben. In den Teilen I und II des Vertrags werden grundsätzliche Fragen geklärt, die eher verfassungspolitischer Natur sind. Neben diesen grundsätzlichen Bestimmungen fasst der Vertrag über eine Verfassung für Europa in einer kompakten Weise alle Regeln zusammen, die in den bisherigen Verträgen zu einzelnen, konkreten Aufgabenbereichen der EU enthalten sind. Dies erklärt, warum der Verfassungsvertrag so umfangreich ist.

With Serbia determined to reject the UN plan for Kosovo, the European Union has conceded it may postpone planned consultations on the plan until a new government is formed in Belgrade. An EU delegation to Belgrade, led by foreign policy chief Javier Solana, enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and separately Britain’s Europe minister Geoff Hoon, gave ground on February 7 after meeting Serbia’s president Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic. After urging them to form a democratic government and take part in planned consultations over the Kosovo’s final status, they indicated they might push back the timetable.

French presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy has claimed that his idea of a mini-treaty replacing the European constitution is now also raising interest with German chancellor Angela Merkel. After talks with Ms Merkel in Berlin on Monday (12 February), the centre-right frontrunner in the French presidential race said that although Ms Merkel cannot publicly admit this, she is in fact sympathetic to his proposals for a slimmed-down version of the EU constitution