The Dutch Labour party has rejected the idea of holding a referendum on the EU's Reform Treaty, making the chances of a public poll in the country extremely unlikely.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday (24 September) laid down two conditions for France to rejoin the military command structure of NATO after an absence of over 40 years.
British daily tabloid The Sun on Monday (24 September) qualified the so-called reform treaty as "the greatest threat to our [the British] nation since World War Two".
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has hit out at European governments for protecting their markets from outside competition.
The Dutch government on Friday decided against holding a referendum on the new EU treaty – but parties in the Dutch parliament look set to ignore this decision and push for an own-initiative poll.
On a visit to Warsaw, Commission President José Manuel Barroso called on Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski to 'find technical solutions' to the EU's draft Reform Treaty.
Although Mr Barroso anticipated that the negotiations on package will be "tough, long and difficult", Germany's reaction was unusually critical of the proposals.
With only a month to go until final talks on a new treaty are supposed to be wrapped up, negotiations are progressing painfully - particularly in relation to Britain and its special status in several legislative areas.
Speaking to UK Liberal Democrats in Brighton on 17 September 2007, Barroso argued the need for institutional reform in order to ensure "a Europe of results" being able to deliver.
A senior French official has raised the question of scrapping a clause in the French constitution which says that future enlargement of European Union should first be voted on in a referendum.
In a meeting on Friday 14, September, the Dutch cabinet decided to postpone the tricky decision by one week after discussing a key report by the Council of State, the Dutch government's highest advisory body.
On 13 September 2007, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will participate in Berlin in a public panel on "Afghanistan -The Way Ahead" organized by NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division.
Ms Merkel offered support for the proposal after meeting Mr Sarkozy at Meseberg castle in Germany on Monday (10 September) but stressed that the group, while discussing enlargement, should not focus "exclusively" on Turkey, Spiegel Online reports.
UK prime minister Gordon Brown has indicated that if other EU member states do not fall into line with London's demands on the bloc's new treaty, he would put the issue to a national vote.
Ministers from the 27-nation EU and its 16 neighbours are gathering in Brussels for the first ever meeting designed to give a new impetus to the ?12 billion-strong policy of mutual cooperation.
In the context of the underlying balance of forces in the Persian Gulf region, make it necessary to analyse what would happen if there really was a war with Iran.
NATO is feeling the pinch as the UN and EU both dip into the same resources to fulfil defence obligations leaving the military alliance thin on soldiers.
EU and Ukrainian leaders will today meet to discuss advancements on a new bilateral agreement with Kiev hoping it will make a clearer allusion to eventual EU integration.
The first test of whether the fast-track timetable for the new EU treaty has a chance of succeeding will take place today (7 September) when foreign ministers discuss the contentious points in the document.
The plan is - after final political confirmation by EU ministers and leaders in the coming months - to stop border checks on land starting by 31 December this year and at airports by 29 March 2008.
This project was funded, in part, through Grant the opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed herein are those of the Author (s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of State.
