Graham's Blog

Regular views, thoughts and comment from Graham Watson MEP on the news, the European Parliament and more.

If you would like to comment on any of the items you see here, please send Graham an email to the following address info@grahamwatsonmep.org

10 Most Recent Stories From Graham's Blog

Fri 5th Feb 2010:

Graham's blog Friday 5 February 2010.

Relations with the US were on the agenda in Brussels this week. Hilary Clinton is upset that the European Parliament's justice and home affairs committee voted yesterday to reject the latest proposal for a regime governing bank account data transfer to the US (to help them fight crime). The matter will have to come to the floor of the House before a final decision can be reached, but I think we will follow the committee's advice. And Barack Obama has upset the EU by letting it be known he will not attend the six-monthly EU-US summit planned for this Spring. He is too busy with other business. My week started in Brussels. I found myself again defending the European Arrest Warrant as the case of England football supporter Gary Mann went to the European Court of Human Rights. (If you listened to Radio 4 or 5-live or watched news channel on Tuesday morning you may have heard me.) Mann was convicted of attacking police after a football match in Portugal in 2005 and encouraging others to do the same. Unsurprisingly, Portugal wants him to serve his sentence. Is Mann the victim of an injustice? As Lord Justice Moses said, if there is a problem it is that he had poor legal representation. But most of my week has been spent in Cyprus with the European Parliament's 'contact group' for relations with northern Cyprus. We met political leaders on both sides of the green line. They are making progress towards an agreement to unify the island, but it is slow and may be too slow to prevent the election in April of a more nationalist community leader as 'President' of northern Cyprus. Both sides want return of land which they were forced off in - or just before - the 1974 Turkish invasion and which, in many cases, has since been developed by others. The irony is that if they agreed to settle for something less they would all become hugely better off: the estimated benefit of the 'peace dividend' is a EUR 1.8 bn boost to the island's economy, lifting the average income of Greek Cypriots by 25% and of Turkish Cypriots by 40% over five years. Greece and Turkey are also occupying minds in Brussels. Next week we vote to adopt (I predict) a report on Turkey's progress towards EU accession which will be more critical of Turkey than before, particularly on issues regarding Cyprus. And we note the monitoring arrangements put in place to ensure that Greece deals with its budget deficit, which is four times higher than the Euro zone rules allow. At 12.7% it is lower than the UK's deficit, but Greece's public debt is equivalent to 112% of GDP, while the UK's is still under 70%. Much of my effort this week has gone into an oration I have been asked to give about Chris Clarke at his memorial service at Wells Cathedral this afternoon. He was truly an inspiring leader and, to me, a trusted friend. I hope I can do him justice.

Fri 29th Jan 2010:

Graham's blog Friday 29 January 2010.

I made an error in last week's blog, for which I apologise: Luxembourg's prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker is no longer also finance minister. He ceded the role to political ally and former justice minister Luc Frieden at the end of July last year, but I had missed it. (Government reshuffles in Luxembourg don't always hit the headlines.) Parliament has been very quiet again this week. In the foreign affairs committee we heard from Madeleine Albright of the USA about the reform of NATO and from Serge Brammertz, Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, about prosecutions of war criminals and the need for more resources for his work. We also voted to recommend to the full house the opening of EU accession talks with Macedonia, to propose finishing this year the talks with Croatia (now almost ready to join the EU) and to tell Turkey to pull its socks up. Greece this week proposed 2014 (the 100th anniversary of the murder of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which led to the first world war) as the target date for all the western Balkans countries to join the EU. Few others think it realistic, but the EU is to meet the five countries concerned - Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Montenegro - in Sarajevo at the end of May to review progress. Our development committee heard from EU development aid Commissioner Karel de Gucht (Belgian Liberal) about his visit to Haiti, where the UN, the World Bank, the US, the EU and others have agreed to call an international donor conference in March to extract pledges of support for the massive task of rebuilding of the country. Having reached 2010, the date by which the EU's Lisbon strategy was due to have made it 'the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world' (a pledge made by all the prime ministers in 2000), our leaders need a new target to aim for. Thus they now talk of the EU's 2020 strategy. The components of the two are remarkably similar. Perhaps 2020 suggest more vision. It is not the vision which is lacking, however; more the plan of how to get there. Hungary and Latvia, which had to be bailed out by their EU partners after last year's financial crisis, have both taken measures to bring down their government deficits and were given a pat on the head this week by Commissioner Almunia. And I am pleased to say that in a rather more modest way the county of Somerset was held up as an example of how to move to more sustainable and less polluting transport through its bio-ethanol car fleet scheme, which I brought the Agriculture Commissioner to the county to inspect a few years ago. Parliament and Council are still at loggerheads over the practice of transferring EU citizens' bank account details to the US government through the inter-bank network to help fight terrorism. In an interim agreement, to run from February to October, member state governments implicitly recognise that what they are doing breaks data protection laws and that new provisions will be needed from October. I will speak to students in Gloucester this morning and to Lib Dems in Tewkesbury this evening. In between I'll be out leafleting to persuade people of the merits of the EU. If you'd like to come and join me, we meet at the Northway Pub in Northway, Tewkesbury (GL20 8HQ) at 3.30 pm.

Fri 22nd Jan 2010:

Graham's blog Friday 22 January 2010.

Last week I reported on problems with the Commissioner-designate from Bulgaria. This week she stood down after it became clear the MEPs would not approve her. The Bulgarian government has since nominated a lady called Kristalina Georgieva, currently a Vice President of the World Bank. She will come before us next week for consideration for the development aid portfolio which was also proposed for the candidate we rejected. This means we will not vote the investiture of the new Commission until 9 February, two days before the 27 heads of state and government meet to discuss the EU's economic situation. Parliament also voted this week to give the current EU Ombudsman another term of office. There were two candidates opposing him but he won reasonably comfortably. The finance ministers in Council voted to approve Luxembourg's finance minister Jean Claude Juncker (who is also Prime Minister!) for another term of office as leader of the 'Euro group' (and now effectively the Euro-zone's finance minister, since the role is formalised in the Lisbon Treaty); he has held the post since 2005. Were there any justice in the world, Juncker would be the EU's new President rather than the colourless Herman van Rompuy, who visited London and addressed the Cabinet this week. But Juncker is too willing to speak his mind for the other national leaders to feel comfortable with him. The debate about the public accounts in Greece led Commissioner Almunia to call this week for the EU's auditors to be allowed to inspect the country's books. I doubt the member states will allow it, but since Almunia will soon take up other duties he felt free to make an important point. Liberal Group leader Guy Verhofstadt made the same point in the debate with the new Spanish Presidency of the EU in Parliament on Wednesday: the 'open' method of co-ordination of economic policy, by which member states try to encourage each other into best practice, does not work well enough; a proper EU-wide economic policy, enforced by the Commission and the European Central Bank, may be needed to prevent a situation where other countries may have to bail out sinners like Greece. The most interesting debate in parliament was about the transfer of bank account data from the EU to the USA through SWIFT, the interbank financial transfer organisation, in contravention of data protection rules. The national governments were instructed by the courts to abide by the law so have established a new agreement with the USA, but have refused to share it with Parliament. Under the Lisbon Treaty, however, they are obliged to give us a say. So the new agreement is a temporary mechanism, expiring on 31 October. MEPs can smell rats; we gave them what for! To watch the debate, click http://tinyurl.com/yd4ldnj. I spoke in a debate late on Tuesday night in favour of better judicial safeguards for defendants who are extradited to face trial. Two of my constituents are currently detained in Hungary awaiting trial. UKIP tried to attack me, but the thrust of their argument is 'cross a national border and you can escape the arm of the law'. It does not wash. My favourite line of the week? Our Belgian leader inviting colleagues to a drinks reception with the words - at least, this is what it sounded like - "you are almost welcome".

Fri 15th Jan 2010:

Graham's blog Friday 15 January 2010.

Happy New Year! The European Parliament's year kicked off with a series of 'hearings' in Brussels this week of the persons designated to be members of the new European Commission. One of them, Rumiana Jeleva of Bulgaria, was given a rough ride and may fail to be approved. She was a MEP in the last parliament and since earlier this year has been her country's foreign minister; but we were not much impressed by her and there are serious doubts about whether she has been honest in her declaration of financial interests. My sense is that MEPs are not looking for a fight with the Council of Ministers about who the 27 governments have nominated: but being a European Commissioner is a prestigious and well paid job carrying serious responsibility and we are not gong to allow them to appoint monkeys. Climate change still dominates much of our thinking. Energy and environment ministers are meeting in Seville this weekend (Spain currently holds the Presidency of the EU) to discuss the follow up to Copenhagen. I met the Commission's chief climate change negotiator, Artur Runtge-Metzger, for supper on Monday together with five other MEPs and some business leaders to learn his views. The Commissioner-designate for energy policy, Gunter Oettinger, performed well at his hearing this week, commiting to make energy efficiency and the promotion of renewables his priorities and to strive to reach the EU's 20-20-20 goal (20% of energy to come from renewables, 20% reduction of energy consumption and a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions, all by the year 2020). The Commissioner designate for climate change, Denmark's Connie Hedegaard, also acquitted herself well. The new full-time President of the European Council (the body in which the 27 member state governments are represented, which is the other 'house' of parliament) managed to put a dampener on things by saying in his video-blog that the outcome from Copenhagen was not bad. His video-blog itself (http://vloghvr.consilium.europa.eu/) is clearly just a series of performances at press conferences thrown together by his private office; it does him no favours. Haiti will occupy new EU foreign policy chief Baroness Ashton. She has called an emergency meeting of development aid ministers for Monday. The EU has already released three million euros in initial emergency aid. As the world's largest aid donor by far it had already planned EUR 28 million in humanitarian aid for Haiti in 2010. Far more will now be needed. Thankfully, the EU is better at providing aid than it once was. When Albania was hit be severe flooding over New Year five EU member states immediately came to its aid with pumps, boats and personnel provided through the Union's 'civil protection mechanism' which co-ordinates such operations. The failed Christmas Day airliner bomb attempt has also occupied us. Last autumn the Commission withdrew a proposal on body-scanners because of MEPs' objections on grounds of efficiency, privacy and data protection. However there is nothing to stop member states going ahead with their own regulations, as a number are now doing. The irony is that there is no evidence a scanner would have detected the explosives which the would-be bomber was carrying. The Spanish Presidency has pledged to make fighting terrorism one of its priorities during its six month term of office. But the most bizarre story, which the Commission is now investigating, is the planting by the Slovak authorities of 90 grammes of RDX, a military explosive, in the suitcase of on an unsuspecting airline passenger bound for Dublin on 2 January 'to test security systems'. Slovakia's chief of border police has already resigned. Next week we are in Strasbourg, where we will debate inter alia the need for procedural guarantees in criminal legal proceedings. If I am called to speak I will raise the cases of Jason McGoldrick and Michael Turner, constituents of mine awaiting trial in Hungary on fraud charges. There is no evidence of anything awry with the legal procedures, but I am trying to make sure their trial takes place as soon as possible. I'll write again from Strasbourg next week.

Fri 18th Dec 2009:

Graham's blog Friday 18 December 2009.

This week we voted the European Union's budget for next year. The talks between Parliament and Council (the national government representatives, in this case the finance ministers) have not been easy, but eventually we reached agreement. From the part of the budget which is non-compulsory expenditure Liberal Democrats are particularly pleased to have secured funding to help rape victims in the Congo, for cross-border investigative journalism and for a sustainable development programme for the Baltic. The promise of aid to developing countries to help mitigate the impact of climate change is currently a thorn in the flesh, since the figure was agreed between the European Commission and the Council without reference to the European Parliament, which is a co-legislator on budgetary matters. If we are unable to find it from the budget we have agreed, the member states will have to find the money separately. I spent Sunday evening, Monday and Tuesday in Copenhagen at the UN conference on climate change, hosting events organised by the climate parliament, which is a body I chair bringing together democratically elected legislators interested in global issues, especially climate. Many were in Copenhagen and on Sunday I hosted Simon Hughes MP (LD) and Tim Yeo (Con); on Monday 15 MPs from Ireland, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland to discuss a renewable energy super-grid for northern Europe and on Tuesday 30 MPs from across the world discussing super-grids in general. The point about super-grids is that, viewed nationally, renewables are often less attractive; the wind may not always blow or the sun always shine. But if the grid stretches across many countries security of supply can be guaranteed. The wind always blows somewhere between Ireland and Finland. (To read my Copenhagen blog, click this link http://www.grahamwatsonmep.org/pages/copenhagen-report.html.) Good news in trade policy this week is that the banana war is finally over. Agreement was reached in Geneva on Monday to bring the world's longest running trade dispute to an end. The EU will pay an extra EUR 200 million in aid to former colonies which rely on banana exports for revenue and phase out tariff barriers to imports of bananas from elsewhere. Parliament still has to sign it off, but we will. Europe has also won its war against Microsoft, which has agreed to a series of changes to its Internet Explorer web browser to avoid a hefty fine (up to six billion euros). It means Microsoft will have to offer, for at least five years, a choice of browsers, giving smaller companies a chance to compete. This is the kind of thing no one country would have been able to achieve on its own. It shows the added value of the EU. Sweden's Presidency of the EU comes to an end on 31 December. It has been a productive one, well planned, well managed and ultimately successful in bringing the Lisbon treaty into force and so creating the conditions for the EU to work more effectively on behalf of our citizens. Parliament resumes a week later than normal in the New Year, on 11 January, so I will not write again until 15 January. In the meantime I wish all my readers a restful Christmas and a happy New Year.

Tue 15th Dec 2009:

Update from Copenhagen Tuesday 15 December PM.

Greetings from Copenhagen! The Swedish environment minister addressed the Conference today, speaking on behalf of the EU. So too did Prince Charles, though on whose behalf nobody was really sure. One or two junior UK government ministers were present. But it seems little of consequence will happen until the heads of state and government show up at the weekend. The NGOs are calling on the EU to go further in its commitments. The EU hesitates, partly out of fear that its competitiveness will be damaged if other industrial nations fail to reciprocate, partly because the Swedish Presidency has to keep France, Germany and Poland (and smaller sticklers) on board in payments to developing countries. Meanwhile the NGO activists don fancy costumes to protest through singing, chanting and play acting (partly to attract attention) and those of us in business suits attend briefings by the climate scientists. Today it started to snow, perhaps prophetically. In a few minutes I have 30 MPs from almost all continents attending my renewable energy supergrid supper. But for me it must be over by 1030 pm because tomorrow I rise at 0430 to fly to Strasbourg to vote in the European Parliament at lunchtime. As such, this will be my last update from Copenhagen, but I will continue to send my weekly newsletter from Brussels and Strasbourg. If you would like to receive this please let me know and I shall add you to my distribution list.

Update from Copenhagen Tuesday 15 Dec AM.

Again in a long queue in the freezing cold outside the conference centre. Despite media headlines about yesterday's disorganisation they seem to have learned little. Tried to observe the talks yesterday evening only to learn it was a closed session, government representatives only, so I trooped off into town to speak to youth leaders brought here by America's Environmental Defense Fund instead. But how can I inspire idealistic young people to go into politics when they see governments acting with such scant regard for transparency? Next month I will show in the EP a film entitled World Vote Now. Watch its trailer at http://www.worldvotenow.com/. The case for a global parliament grows stronger by the hour. Graham

Mon 14th Dec 2009:

Update from Copenhagen Monday 14 Dec AM.

Greetings from the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference! I am here until Wednesday, and hope to keep you updated with developments. I left my hotel at 8.15 this morning. Great public transport here got me to the Bella Centre in less than half an hour. Then a two and a half hr queue outside in -1 deg C with 000s of others from all continents before getting inside. Hopeless organisation, either by Danes or UN or both. They won't come here again for quite a few years. Heads of State and Government arrive later this week but much happening before then. Everyone is determined to save the planet. I will report back again soon. Graham

Update from Copenhagen Monday 14 Dec PM.

After a brief suspension in the negotiations, talks are now tentatively underway again. The climate change conference centre holds 15,000 people. It is rumoured there is at least twice that number outside. This must be the first time world public opinion has mobilised so effectively, putting pressure on the government leaders to act. I spoke to Stavros Dimas, EU environment commissioner. He thinks we will get a deal, at least in the form of a list of commitments by each participating country. Will the commitments be legally binding? It may be better if they are not, since in that case they will be less ambitious. A political agreement would probably be policed quite effectively by world public opinion. Graham

Fri 11th Dec 2009:

Graham's blog Friday 11 December 2009.

As the non-governmental organisations and policy advisers gathered in Copenhagen for the impressive array of meetings and briefings which precede next week's arrival of the government ministers, climate change also dominated this week's European Council (summit) meeting in Brussels. Heads of state or government of the 27 EU countries met on Thursday afternoon and spent long hours overnight trying to reach agreement on how much money the EU will put on the table to help poorer nations cope with the effects of climate change. As I write this morning, they are about to resume: no deal has been reached yet. For the first time in many years I was absent from the Liberal family gathering which preceded the EU summit where Cecilia Malmstrom (former MEP, currently Sweden's EU Affairs minister, soon to be European Commissioner for Interior Affairs) reported on developments under the Swedish Presidency of the EU which ends on 31 December. Cecilia, at just 41 years old, is the rising star of European Liberalism. I will travel to Copenhagen over the weekend (after addressing the annual conference of our sister party The Movement for Rights and Freedoms in Bulgaria on Saturday) to host meetings of the e-parliament, a global legislators initiative which I chair. My colleague Chris Davies MEP is already there (and blogging manically). Here in the European Parliament the political groups met to agree on how to vote next week in Strasbourg on the EU's 2010 budget and other matters. The legislative agenda being very light at present, there were also many thematic conferences going on. The ALDE (Liberal) Group hosted one on the social provisions of the Lisbon Treaty or "how to make Europe more social" at which the director general of Business Europe and the secretary general of the ETUC both spoke. Our new leader, Guy Verhofstadt, wants to put a focus on social liberalism, which pleases his British colleagues but not the Germans. 22 countries (all except the UK, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Malta) issued an appeal in Paris for a 'common EU agriculture and food policy'; they want to keep putting pots of public money into agriculture and were frightened into action by a draft document which leaked from the European Commission earlier this autumn suggesting radical reforms in EU spending. The week started with competitiveness ministers discussing state aid to industry, which is five times greater this year than last. They failed yet again to agree on rules to allow the establishment of companies at EU level, which have been under discussion for at least fifteen years. Foreign ministers were unable to open new chapters in accession negotiations with Turkey because of a veto by Cyprus. And eight MEPs had visas to enter Gaza cancelled by the Israelis on Tuesday after the EU reiterated its commitment to East Jerusalem being the capital of the putative State of Palestine. I'll write next week from Copenhagen and Strasbourg and then leave you undisturbed until the New Year.

Earlier Stories

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(c) 2010 Graham Watson MEP

Letter from the European Parliament, 13 November 2009

Another unusually quiet week in Brussels. With David Miliband having opted to stay in UK politics (or perhaps having been told by Brown that he would not be nominated, the UK preferring to have a heavyweight economic portfolio in the next Commission such as the Trade portfolio we currently hold), there is still no decision on the EU's top jobs. The Swedish EU Presidency will bring our 27 heads of state and government together next week to try to reach agreement. Even if they succeed, it now seems the earliest the next Commission will be in place will be 1st February, since Barroso needs time to compose his Commission and Parliament has to organise approval hearings for 27 Commissioners-designate.

After the best ever EU-India summit last weekend (see my report in this week's Liberal Democrat News), attention has turned to the EU-Russia summit scheduled for 18 November. The EU wants a guarantee there will no disruption to oil and gas supplies this winter. We also want a scrapping of recent Russian import tariffs and export subsidies and an improvement in the rule of law in Russia. I guess we will be disappointed on all counts.

Vaclav Havel came to address MEPs this week as part of the celebration of 20 years since the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. He told us that Europe is no longer the centre of civilisation and that we had better do some good in the world before economic power shifts further away; and this means putting more emphasis on values and culture than on petty regulation. He is right; but it is easier for poets to say these things than for institutions of government to achieve them.

Probably the most important thing I did this week was to take representatives of the English Golf Union to see senior taxation officials in the European Commission. The exemption from VAT of not-for-profit golf clubs is causing divisions within the sport and the EGU would like all clubs to be treated on the same basis; ideally of course at a reduced rate of VAT. The wider problem, which stems from the way governments have wanted to vary VAT rates to achieve social ends (using tax policy as a form of social policy, which is hugely bureaucratic and inefficient), was also on the agenda of the 27 finance ministers this week. Commission officials hope to persuade their political masters to make proposals next year to revise radically the 1977 VAT legislation.

It being that time of year, there is much to-ing and fro-ing about next year's EU budget. We need to find an extra EUR 2.4 billion for investment in economic recovery, but there are strong lobbies against sacrificing other parts of the budget. A leaked Commission document calling for a scrapping of regional funding in western Europe has been quietly buried; it was so politically insensitive it must have been penned in the dog days of August. The total EU budget next year will probably be EUR 121.5 billion (1.03% of the GNI of the member states). The Court of Auditors has again signed off the EU's accounts, noting that fraud against the agriculture budget is down but commenting that irregularities in regional policy payments are still too high.

Parliament voted this week to remove the requirement for visas from short-stay visitors to EU countries from Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro. If the Council agrees on 30 November they will be able to come visa-free before Christmas. The American government is preparing to tax us all $10 for entering the USA, however, which is a visa in disguise. I will add my voice to the EU doing the same to US citizens.

Letter from the European Parliament, Friday 16 October 2009

This week the European Parliament's political groups met to discuss the agenda for next week's formal debates and votes in Strasbourg. There were also a few committee meetings. My colleague Fiona Hall MEP, one of the busiest bees in the Brussels hive, was involved in a 'conciliation' meeting, when MEPs and national government representatives meet informally to thrash out agreement on disputed issues of legislation - in this case on environmental matters. In these fora, individual MEPs can exercise considerable power.

Having chosen to sit on the foreign affairs committee I have little involvement in the nuts and bolts of legislation in this way; but there are always ways to influence government: I was part of one such attempt this week when I joined civil society organisations at a conference calling for the creation of a European Peace Corps. In practice, the EU often uses NGOs to supply civilian volunteers in area where peace building is needed; currently we have quite a few in Indonesia, for example. Some of us feel that a more structured peace corps, along the lines of the German model, might increase Europe's capacity to assist.

The Liberal group started the week in Berlin, where we gathered to discuss (in addition to Parliamentary business) prospects for the new German government with our German Free Democratic Party partners, fresh from their victory at the polls last month. They expect to secure four or five ministers in the new government, including the foreign ministry, but are already having difficulties with their Christian Democratic coalition partners over Turkey's prospects for EU membership.

I returned to Brussels on Tuesday night to meet the head of the SW Regional Development Agency. Nobody knows what will happen to the agencies under a new government next year, but the process of lobbying for EU support for government programmes in the SW must go on. It is a process in which our Conservative MEPs rarely take part because they contest the whole idea of regional governance in the UK.

Tony Blair's campaign to be the first full time president of the Council of Ministers gained a new public supporter this week in the form of Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi. One is tempted to ask whether, with friends like that ….? But he now has a rival British contender. Make of this what you will, but my colleague Chris Davies MEP (LibDem, NW England) has written to the 27 heads of state and government announcing that he is a candidate for the job. The newswire Agence Europe calls it a tongue-in-cheek bid and describes Chris as a 'humourist and provocateur'.

Chris Davies can take satisfaction, however, that his work last year on carbon capture and storage is bearing fruit. On Tuesday the EU's energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs convened in London the third meeting of ministers from 21 countries around the world to discuss how to advance at Copenhagen the need for serious investment in capture and storage technology. The EU has pledged one billion euros to fund demonstration projects.

The Transport ministers reached agreement this week on the rights of passengers on maritime transport, to bring this sector into line with recent legislation on the rights of air and railway passengers. The European Commission busied itself with discussion of the problem of the 450,000 wills every year which involve assets in more than one country. They seek to make it possible for all assets left in a will to be governed by a single legal system, either that of the member state of the deceased or that of the country is which the assets or held. Currently it can prove difficult and costly for a beneficiary to receive her or his inheritance.

I was at the Sir John Colfox school in Bridport yesterday to launch a 'language learning through sport' initiative. I am now having a weekend off. I will write again from Strasbourg next week. The Polish President has signed the Lisbon Treaty. By next week we might know more about the intentions of the bouncing Czech.