EU leaders managed to overcome
their two-year institutional impasse on 23rd June at the European Council
in Brussels and agreed the outline of a new treaty for the bloc with
formal intergovernmental negotiations to start on 23rd July.
Portuguese Prime Minister
José Sócrates announced that the EU Portuguese Presidency
starting on July 1st will convene an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC)
beginning on 23rd-24th July with the task of drafting the future European
Treaty. José Sócrates said further that the aim would
be for the Treaty to be adopted in October, at the informal meeting
of the Heads of State and Government in Lisbon. The Prime Minister said
that “a lot of work lies ahead of us, but now we have the conditions
to progress. This objective is our absolute priority for the coming
months”. Sócrates underlined that he wants to "speed
up this process", by "first, drafting and approving"
the Treaty and only then “discussing its ratification”.
German EU Presidency
(2007), Presidency
Conclusions, Brussels European Council 21/22 June 2007, 11177/07,
23.06.2007. (PDF)
