EU leaders clinched an agreement yesterday on a mandate to overhaul the 27-nation bloc after persuading Poland to end a standoff that nearly torpedoed a marathon summit.
The leaders agreed to negotiate a reform treaty by the end of this year, to be ratified by mid-2009, replacing the EU Constitution rejected in 2005 by French and Dutch voters.
The 4:30am deal could relaunch the political integration of Europe after two years of gloom and introspection since referendums sank the Constitution, dramatizing public disaffection with a project seen as remote and bureaucratic.
Provided it is ratified this time, the treaty should give Europe stronger leadership, a streamlined decision-making process, a bigger voice on the world stage and more say for the European and national parliaments.
"I was sure that if we had not achieved this today, we would have ended up in a rather disastrous situation as many would have thought they had been pushed too far," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for whom the deal was a significant diplomatic achievement.
The deal opened the way for further enlargement of the EU, she said, which would be impossible without reformed institutions.
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, who takes over the EU chair next month, said he hoped to have the treaty agreed as early as October.
"We have avoided a crisis," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted as saying in an interview to appear today in the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag.
"Uncertainty about our future treaty has cast a shadow of doubt over our ability to act. Now those doubts have been removed," he said.
Several state leaders convinced Polish President Lech Kaczynski to back down after weeks of resistance and accept a compromise on voting rights in exchange for a long delay in their introduction.
"After today, Poland is capable of much better cooperation with France, Britain and also Germany, because we experienced solidarity," Kaczynski told reporters.
He was unapologetic over comments that Poland deserved compensation for its suffering in World War II. This offended many European leaders and privately infuriated Merkel.
"History is history. It is fact that had there not been the war, Poland would not have 38 million people, but many more," Kaczynski said.
Merkel struggled to break Polish opposition to the treaty which it complained would cut Warsaw's voting power and give more say to big countries, especially Germany.
She eventually threatened to launch treaty negotiations without Warsaw's assent, prompting a final dash for compromise.
Poland settled for a deal that put off full application of the new decision-making procedure until 2017.
It was also offered pledges of solidarity by the rest of the bloc in the event of future energy crises, a big concern of Poland, which is heavily dependent on imports from giant gas and oil exporter Russia.
The treaty will preserve key features of the Constitution such as the creation of a long-term president of the EU and a foreign policy chief with increased powers.
The tense summit was French President Nicolas Sarkozy's first and British Prime Minister Tony Blair's last. Sarkozy injected a feverish activism into the quest for what he dubbed a "simplified treaty," while Blair ended his decade in power without having achieved his stated goal of putting Britain at the heart of Europe.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique