EU leaders yesterday signed a new treaty they said allows them to react more promptly to global issues by changing the way their bloc is run.
The Lisbon Treaty, endorsed by the EU's 27 leaders two months ago after years of unease among Europeans about how much sovereignty they should surrender to centralized rule, replaces a thwarted project to establish a European constitution.
The treaty will come into force after it is ratified by all member states. The aim is to complete that process by 2009.
PHOTO: EPA
The signing took place, however, amid complaints that the heads of government were not planning to hold referendums on the document and accusations about environmental damage they were causing by flying to a two-hour ceremony.
The document alters the EU's decision-making architecture. More decisions are to be taken by majority vote, removing the need for unanimous endorsement which in the past had stymied the bloc's efforts to present a united front.
The treaty also provides for a president to be chosen by member states and a more powerful senior foreign policy official who will be the point man for EU strategy. It scraps the system under which the bloc's presidency rotates among member states every six months.
The number of European Commissioners is to be cut. That is part of an attempt to make the EU less unwieldy after it expanded to include 27 member countries.
In an effort to stress the EU's democratic credentials, the European Parliament is handed more power and can modify or reject proposed EU legislation.
"By resolving its institutional matters, Europe is readying itself to address global problems," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.
"Now it is time to move ahead. Europe must tackle numerous challenges, both at home and abroad, and our citizens want results. Globalization is the common denominator of all those challenges," Barroso said in a speech.
The leaders and their foreign ministers signed the treaty in the bloc's 23 official languages, with specially engraved silver fountain pens provided by Portugal, which currently holds the EU presidency.
A choir sang Beethoven's Ode to Joy as the leaders signed their names on heavy, leather-bound volumes inside the ornate 16th-century riverside monastery.
However, the leaders' refusal to ask their citizens what they think about the treaty has brought widespread protests.
Only one country -- Ireland -- plans a referendum. The 26 others say they will ratify the document in their parliaments.
The treaty's detractors claim EU governments dare not put the document to a vote because they fear a majority of their people do not want it. The constitution project was scrapped after voters in France and the Netherlands refused to endorse the plan in referendums two years ago, igniting a political crisis.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, sharply criticized at home over his refusal to hold a referendum, skipped the televised ceremony and was to sign the treaty later at a private lunch with other leaders. He insists that treaty opt-outs he negotiated allow Britain to keep its sovereignty in key areas such as justice, home and foreign affairs and security.
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