Reform Treaty live

Just watching the Press Conference of Luis Amado after the first section of the IGC in Lisbon. It starts with “There’s no translation I’m afraid”. Which is fine and the minister actually works out perfectly in both Portuguese and English. You can say that he’s a very skillful politicians, tries to avoid any concrete words during his presentation, keeps most for the Q&A sessions.

What is the situation before the dinner then?

– the Austrian issue of the access to Universities is “settled”: no details on how

– the Bulgarian issue of the spelling of Euro in cyrillic is “settled”: no details on how

For the rest Amado assures that those questions within the remit of the IGC Mandate will be solved at the IGC in Lisbon, the rest perhaps later. He’s quite honest about the Treaty-solving Summit: he’s fed up…and leaves the press room for a long night.

No news on solving the Polish outstanding issues (Ioannina and number of advocates general), which is at least a bit worrying. Everyone understands that these two issues will be where the compromise has to be found in order to get the Treaty. The Italian issue on the number of MEPs can be postponed.

It seems like the toughest will come at the end, which is not a bad strategy, since many breakthroughs in EU history came about in the small hours after endless negotiations. See the long summit in Nice as example. It makes me think that this is part of the EU trying to be exciting. Imagine, journalists waiting until morning for the busy negotiators to appear and save the world. Stories that can be told afterwards! But it’s still all about declarations, articles, protocols…And after 6-7 years I really wonder.

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You can watch parts of the IGC on-line here.