European Union leaders signed the Treaty of Lisbon to reform the
bloc's institutions and give it stronger leadership, marking the
end of a difficult process that has lasted nearly a decade.
At an elaborate signing ceremony at Lisbon's grandiose Jeronimos
Monastery, leaders said the treaty would open a new chapter in EU
history by giving it a more robust foreign policy and more
democracy in decision-making.
The treaty replaces an ambitious constitution that was scrapped
after French and Dutch voters rejected it in 2005.
"This was the European project that many generations dreamt of and
others before us championed, with a vision of the future,"
Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said at the ceremony.
"Europe was blocked, without knowing how to move forward and we
found the solution with this treaty," French President Nicolas
Sarkozy told reporters.
The treaty is a toned down version of the constitution and EU
leaders hope it will be effective in adapting the bloc's structures
to having 27 members, after it opened its doors to 12 mostly
ex-communist states in 2004 and 2007.
"For the first time, the countries that were once divided by a
totalitarian curtain, are now united in support of a common treaty
that they had themselves negotiated," European Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso told the leaders.
"It is the treaty of an enlarged Europe from the Mediterranean to
the Baltic, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea," he
said.
Long-term president
The bloc's rotating presidencies will end with the new treaty and
be replaced in 2009 with a long-term president of the European
Council, who will chair summits.
The treaty will also create a foreign policy high
representative.
It will allow more decisions to be taken by majority voting,
notably on justice and security issues, and give more say to the
European and national parliaments.
A charter of fundamental European rights is attached to the
treaty.
The leaders signed the treaty in the monastery's cloister, taking
turns to sign under the hall's elaborate arches while Beethoven's
Ode to Joy was played in the background.
Afterwards, the leaders hopped on a tram with the words 'Treaty of
Lisbon' written on its side to travel the short distance to lunch
at a nearby museum.
The signing will start a ratification process by national EU
parliaments that leaders hope will avoid the 2005 "No" by French
and Dutch voters to the proposed constitution.
This time around, only Ireland is planning a referendum, reducing
the risks of an upset, even though polls suggest many Irish voters
are undecided or indifferent.
Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado warned in an interview on
Thursday that failure to ratify the treaty would create fresh
turmoil in Europe.
"We would have a political crisis in Europe, a serious one, worse
than the one we've already been through," Amado told the Spanish
daily ABC.
In streamlining decision-making and ending a drawn-out process,
officials hope the treaty can allow the EU to turn to more
important things, such as job creation and the challenges of
globalisation.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown signed the treaty later at the
restaurant where the leaders had lunch after delaying his arrival
due to an appearance before a parliamentary committee.
Brown's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "This is a day for
Europe to look to the future."
