The EU Summit and treaty

7.37.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 28th Jun 2007

Europe flag (flag of European Union)

I meant to write about this earlier in the week, well last weekend actually but seem to have been rather busy. Last weekend saw the European Council meeting. The main topic of discussion will be the contents of the next EU Treaty, everyone is of course claiming a victory - though I think the biggest victory was for Poland.

Poland did the unthinkable, in arguing for more voting rights in the Union they mentioned the War. Poland said they would have a bigger population and therefore say if so many of it's population had not been killed in World War Two. Quite a bizarre tactic but it seemed to have worked with Poland due to gain a number of MEPs!

Much of the Treaty seems fine, but I haven't read the small print yet! The European Union is a very worthwhile set of institutions which has done much to improve our lives through environmental legislation, improved civil liberties and human rights and improvements in social justice. However it does need improving - it needs to be more open, democratic and accountable with less waste and less bureaucracy - stopping the travelling circus would be a start!