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"The new European Commission unveiled last week by José Manuel Barroso constitutes an almost optimal solution. The president has demonstrated once again his tactical skills by making the most of the cards he had been dealt by the member states' governments," write Antonio Missiroli and Janis Emmanouilidis, senior researchers at the European Policy Centre (EPC), in a December paper.

"The unedifying spectacle of the 'ratification saga' and subsequent institutional patch-up [...] should lead us to ask again about the desirability of retaining the veto, which allows a single member state to paralyse the entire [European] Union," argues French think-tank Notre Europe in a December paper.

Now that institutional discussions are closed, the EU must have an in-depth discussion on fundamental issues, writes Olivier Lacoste, research director at Confrontations Europe. For instance, what European policies should be put in place?

Ahead of the economic and finance ministers today in Brussels (2 December), Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquín Almunia calls for public finances to be returned to a sustainable path in an op-ed sent to EurActiv.

"We have no alternative. We must handle climate change and we must do it right now. Copenhagen is the deadline. Time is up," writes former Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard, the EU's commissioner-designate for climate action, in an exclusive op-ed for EurActiv.

"It seems that the strategic interests of most EU countries versus Russia are actually similar," write Adam Balcer, Adam Jasser and Paweł Świeboda of the Polish foundation 'Demos EUROPA' in a November paper analysing the task facing new EU High Representative Catherine Ashton in winning the confidence of Europe's citizens.

"Countries in Europe's east and north worry that Moscow is blundering into a confrontation with NATO" and they have good reason to be concerned, argues Tomas Valasek, director of foreign policy and defence at the Centre for European Reform (CER), in a November paper.

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