Tag: Lisbon Treaty

Olli Rehn, the European Commission's vice president in charge of economic and monetary affairs, has reportedly told the Finnish press that he may run to head the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group’s list in European elections next year, so becoming their candidate to be the next president of the EU executive.

The links between national parliaments and the European Parliament should be strengthened in order to tackle the EU democratic deficit and increase EU legitimacy. A more fundamental reform would be to implement the long-discussed idea of establishing a forum for national parliamentarians in Brussels, writes Charles Grant.

The five-year mandate of the present European Commission President expires 31 October 2014. Contrary to the restrictive provisions concerning the president of the European Council and the members of the Court of Justice, the EU Treaty is silent over the possibility of reinstating the Commission's presidents and members, writes Eberhard Rhein.

Eleven countries will each lose one seat in the European Parliament after the next elections to make room for Croatia, which is expected to join the EU on 1 July and will also forfeit one of the seats allocated to it. 

Politicians from the European centre-left opposed changing the EU treaty, advocated by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in Brussels yesterday (29 November).

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso delivered today (12 September) his State of the Union speech, passionately pleading for launching a wide-ranging public debate for a major transformation of the European Union into a "federation of nation states".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering an EU 'convention' to draw up a new treaty for closer European political unification and help overcome the bloc's sovereign debt crisis, the weekly Der Spiegel reported on Sunday (26 August). Merkel later denied the report.

With the current economic crisis, the Union has a unique opportunity to make greater use of the new set of provisions offered by the Lisbon Treaty to enforce social rights at the European level, argues Klaus Heeger from the European Confederation of Independent Trade Unions (CESI).

As the European Parliament prepares this week to elect its president for the second-half of the current legislature, EurActiv asked leading MEPs to take stock of progress made so far and challenges lying ahead of the next European elections in 2014. Frustration over national leaders' management of the economic crisis and the need to tackle the rising wave of euroscepticism top their concerns.

Preparations should be made for European treaty change according to the conclusions from today's (23 October) EU summit, following a lengthy dispute over the relative powers of the eurozone and wider EU 27 countries.

Ahead of a crucial EU summit on the debt crisis, supporters and opponents of amending the bloc's Treaty to strengthen the euro zone locked horns yesterday (13 October) in Brussels, amid growing calls by Germany to reopen the institutional debate.

EU countries have agreed on the English text of Croatia's Accession Treaty, and it is realistic to expect it to be signed at the beginning of December, the Polish EU Presidency announced yesterday (14 September).

The EU has overestimated the importance of the Lisbon Treaty and the international community is still wondering who speaks for the European Union on the international stage, Finnish President Tarja Halonen said in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.

Catherine Ashton, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, will at last have the right to speak at the United Nations General Assembly, following a vote held yesterday (3 May).

Businesses require "much more professionalism" and "swifter answers" from their industry associations to deal with the complexity of today’s EU institutional landscape, according to Alain Beaumont, founder of AGEP Association Management.

Leading MEP Andrew Duff has tabled "federalist" proposals to enable future EU treaty revisions to be made with a four-fifths majority of member states, in a bid to bypass the UK's 'referendum lock' on any further treaty amendments.

One year into his second term, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso has vowed to fight back against attempts by member states to put EU affairs back on a purely intergovernmental basis.

On 16 December the European Parliament approved a new EU regulation on so-called 'implementing acts' and the Council of Ministers should now ratify the text, which will establish two new worlds in EU comitology: 'delegated' and 'implementing' acts, write Dr Alan Hardacre and Dr Michael Kaeding from the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA).

The European Commission is embarking in a general review of the VAT system, which represents a key source of revenue for member states and the EU institutions.

The European Union should decide on a crisis mechanism swiftly and modify the bloc's treaty but this must not impede Croatia's accession process, Hungary's top EU affairs official said on Thursday (18 November).

A Franco-German proposal to sanction eurozone budget sinners by stripping them of their EU voting rights faces massive opposition from other countries in the bloc, it emerged after a two-day summit in Brussels on Friday (29 October).

The Deauville Declaration of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy is the most visible of the five possible treaty changes since the Lisbon Treaty came into effect – and it would close a significant loophole in the euro zone, write Piotr Maciej Kaczyński and Peadar ó Broin, research fellows at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS).

Ahead of an EU summit opening today (28 October), Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt warned that the European Parliament was determined to use its new powers under the Lisbon Treaty and would not let economic governance plans be "diluted" by Germany and France.

Hungary, which takes over the European Union's rotating presidency in January, sees little appetite for substantial changes to the EU's guiding treaty, its European affairs minister said yesterday (26 October).