Finally, last night European Union members agreed at the last minute on the EU treaty they had been bickering about for two days at the EU summit (see post).
EU DEAL: MAIN ISSUES
Double majority voting delayed until 2014
Long-term EU president
High Representative for foreign affairs
Fewer national veto powers
More powers for the European Parliament
After much deliberation at the two-day European Union summit, an agreement on a treaty outlining the rules for the 27-member body has been reached. Many were skeptical of whether the EU's members would be able to get over their specific reservations to varying areas of the treaty. This is big news for the EU.
The final stumbling block — Poland's reservations about the voting system — was resolved. The solution was to put that decision off until 2014, as noted in the deal outline above.
Germany, the chair of the now-ended summit, wants a replacement for the rejected 2005 constitution. However, whatever its replacement is, there has been a decision to not use the word "constitution" (oh the language of politics...).
One of the focuses of the summit and deal was the European Union's foreign policy. Often an EU delegate is sent to represent EU nations; as we saw in the case of the G8 summit earlier this month, the EU had a delegate in addition to the G8 countries. European foreign policy interests, it is believed, are best represented by the EU, but how exactly this diplomacy between a multi-national body and individual nations runs best is still being worked out.
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