I am pretty sure that the  pressure on Klaus will be enormous. There are already rumors that Angela Merkel is preparing a “diplomatic sweetener” for him, whatever that means… Taking into account that the Czech Parliament ratified the treaty and the Czech president does not have any powers to veto the treaty,  it is his constitutional obligation to sign it eventually (apparently the problem is that the Czech constitution does not specify how long the President is allowed to postpone his  signature). Obviously he will use the argument that he needs to wait until the constitutional court has issued the ruling on a complaint of some senators. But in the end I am pretty sure that he will sign and that he will not have the guts to wait until the Conservatives form a government in the UK (which might happen next summer)…

However, the wider context is noteworthy: After a almost a decade of debate (Laeken 2001, Convention, Constitutional treaty, …) it seems that we end up with this mini reform treaty. I think most of the other major EU treaties contained more far-reaching reforms than this one. Basically only a couple of things are really innovative:  new double majority voting in more policy areas, a strengthened role for the European Parliament, some clarifications regarding competences, and some improvements in the field of EU foreign policy.

One thing is quite clear, there won’t be another big EU treaty for the foreseeable future  given the difficulty to get such a text ratified by 27 member states. A positive side effect might be that we can finally concentrate on policy issues and leave this institutional debate behind us – at least for a couple of years.  However, the Lisbon Treaty is far from being perfect and it is quite possible that it will create a number of institutional problems. The future will bring new challenges and new reforms might be necessary. And let’s face it: every reform needs to be reformed. So how is it possible to address these challenges and ensure further EU reform, even with 30+ member states (and with people like David Cameron)?

One possibility is to move towards thematic treaties. For example a “issue treaty” on climate change, or one on foreign policy or on police cooperation. These treaties would address one specific issue only – which seems much easier to communicate. These treaties would contain a list of competences for EU institutions as well as national institutions. Moreover, such an issue treaty would address the decision making in this specific policy area and  maybe even include  specific policy aims (reducing emission by 30%, creating a new agency or a new position, banning a certain chemical substance,  introducing a certain measure…whatever). One thing must be included however: if a country rejects one of those treaties, everyone must be clear about the consequences. Basically, a rejection would result in an opt out (similar to Schengen, Euro) but with the possibility to join later.  Of course the result would be an even more complex EU. But maybe this is the price to pay for a bigger and more diverse EU…

Jason O’Mahony explains the reasons behind the guide:

So why write this guide? Because I was so underwhelmed by the Yes side in the last referendum. We were so bad at communicating our message, and at replying to the, let’s face it, tinfoil-inside-my-hat-to-stop-Martian-radio-signals threats coming from elements of the No side. So I decided to do something about it. I wrote The Spoofer’s Guide to the Lisbon Treaty to explain what I understood and felt about an EU that wasn’t the evil monster that the No side were claiming. I put it together with some friends and sent it out, where, judging by the emails I got back from Ireland and the continent and the US, it struck a chord with people.

Here’s the new version. Those of you who read the old one will recognise a lot of it, but there’s also some new stuff in it. It is a biased guide, in that I am biased and support the Treaty, but I’d like to think that it’s not slavish about it.

Read it!

The goal of the NGOs study is two-fold: on the one hand, to look into how the MEPs contributed, through their activity, to stimulating participative democracy, and, on the other hand, to consolidate people’s trust in the European Parliament by empowering them to take an informed decision when voting for their MEPs in June 2009. The study is based on activity reports (voluntarily submitted to the NGO by a part of the MEPs), personal pages on the EP website, personal websites and/or blogs as well as the presence at plenary debates and at committee meetings. The main criteria used throughout the study were the way the MEPs relate to the citizens they represent, the transparency of their activity, as well as the relevance of their actions for the overall EP output.

The study is mainly made up by short profiles of each Romanian MEP, containing both quantitative data (presence at debates, number of reports and amendments drafted, number of interventions in plenary, etc), and qualitative information about their work (main topics addressed, social groups represented, other activities in which they were involved, etc). Moreover, the communication with the citizens was also analysed, focusing on accessibility (email address and other contact details), the quality of the information posted on the website, as well as the openness to discuss with the people though a blog.

Taking into account all these various aspects, the MEPs activity ìs assessed as either: ” weak”, “medium”, “good” or “very good”. Overall the picture does not look too bad, and the fact that the study sheds light on the specific areas each MEP focused on turns out to be very useful and reduces the risk of generalisation. Moreover, the study (which you can read here) is written in a very clear and reader-friendly manner and can be a very good information tool in the upcoming elections campaign.

And, what is more important, it sets a good example of what more NGOs (and not necessarily think tanks!) from other member states could do in a drive towards more transparency and increasing people’s interst and trust in the MEPs they are electing.

So where are similar reports from other countries that assess the performance of MEPs? What happened to the MEP tracking website? Votewatch.eu is still not launched… and the EP elections are coming closer. In an ideal world this kind of data would have been used by political parties in the nomination process…

Think about it! – The (first!) European Blogging Competition 2009 is a new blogging competition (some nice gadgets up for grabs) organised by the European Journalism Centre! The competition will start in February and will last until the EP elections. The exciting thing is that there will be a training component for all participants (after all it is run by a professional journalism organisation;-) You do not necessarily be a journalist or blogger, however you should be interested in EU affairs and the EP elections and you should feel enthusiastic about tryinig out blogging for a few months! If that sounds like a good idea to you can join the official facebook group and you can sign up here:

A dynamic community of bloggers, journalists and journalism students, a forum alive with debate and discussion, a creative portal to inspire youth involvement with the 2009 Parliamentary Elections, brought to you by the European Journalism Centre (EJC).

The goal is to get Europeans to THINK ABOUT IT and to express their views on Europe through an online blogging competition. The invited bloggers will cover, report, critique and debate on campaign issues and candidates. EJC editors will give feedback on the journalistic standards of the blog posts.

The EJC invites three bloggers from each EU member state for a two-day THINK ABOUT IT launch event in Brussels 25-27.1.2009. At the kick-off invitees are briefed on the European blogsphere, European Parliament, elections and on understanding the EU from a journalist’s perspective. The event also launches the blog contest, which invitees participate in throughout the official campaign season.

For more information just click here. Some fancy banners for your website/blog in various sizes can be found here.

Disclaimer: The author of this blog has been involved in the development of the project.

The “Anyone but Barroso” – Campaign calls for a new Commission President in 2009:

We don’t care who but the Commission needs a new President in 2009

1) 3 countries have voted No in recent referendums about European matters.

2) The EU has a crisis of confidence, a crisis of identity

3) Under these circumstances, the head of the EU’s executive, Commission president Barroso, must NOT be reappointed.

And since it is a typical online campaign, you can get involved! You can sign the petition and join and invite others on facebook. And make sure to read the campaign blog. Although not much content is provided at the moment, this will surely change soon!

It is an interesting idea especially because there is a real possibility of a second term for José Manuel Barroso. He has been rather active to lobby member states about the necessity for his second term. And member states so far have been reluctant to actually make the case for another candidate. The danger is that there will be another four years “muddling through”… Obviously the campaign has to be seen as a first step towards a debate on who actually should become Commission President as pure negative campaigning is not always the way to go.

I think it is also important to get people to think about the performance of the present Commission as an act of politicizing EU affairs! Actually it is quite a good example for what’s wrong with the EU at the moment: Basically the most powerful position in EU politics is decided on the “Justus Lipsius carpet market” as Graham Watson (MEP) once said.  There is another campaign out there that calls for a democratic election of the Commission President: Who’s your candidate? wants to get the main European parties to nominate  their candidate for Commission President before the 2009 EP elections in order to give the position a greater democratic mandate!