.bmp)
.bmp)
LISBONLeaders of the 27-nation European Union signed a landmark treaty Thursday to revitalise EU decision-making, but the new unity was marred by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's absence from the ceremony."History will remember this day as a day when new paths of hope were opened to the European ideal," Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said at the elaborate ceremony in a historic Lisbon monastery.However the British leader's failure to sign the treaty with the other leaders-a week after boycotting an EU-Africa summit-led to new accusations that Britain is too lukewarm toward Europe.Brown, who attended a British parliamentary committee hearing in the morning, eventually arrived at the official lunch venue after most of the other leaders had left.He signed the 250-page text, which has been widely criticised in Britain as handing more powers over to Brussels, and was whisked away without commenting to reporters."We've all got problems to deal with. I personally think that we need Britain in Europe," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after the signing at the Jeronimos Monastery."We need Gordon," he added in English, after British foreign minister David Miliband inked the text at the official ceremony at which the other 26 nations were represented by heads of state or government.Socrates insisted that the treaty-which replaces a draft EU constitution scuppered by French and Dutch referendums in 2005-poses no threat to the national sovereignty of member states."The European project does not eliminate nor minimise national identities,"he said."It offers a multilateral framework of regulation from which benefits can be drawn for the whole and for each of the parts that participate in the project."The treaty must still be ratified in each member state before it can come into effect, as planned, in 2009. Ireland is to hold a national referendum and polls indicate that Irish voters have mixed feelings about the treaty."Maximum political commitment on all sides is now necessary,"said European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering."Through your signing of the treaty today, we are all committing ourselves to its early ratification.We would like this treaty to come into force by 1 January 2009 at the latest," he added.Like the rejected constitution, the treaty proposes a European foreign policy supremo and a permanent president to replace the cumbersome six-month rotating presidency system.It cuts the size of the European Parliament and the number of EU decisions which require unanimous support, hence reducing national vetoes.It also includes a European charter of fundamental human and legal rights,which Britain and Poland have refused to make binding.However it drops all references to an EU flag or anthem, which had fanned eurosceptic fears of another step towards a federal Europe.Only Ireland is constitutionally bound to hold the kind of referendum which doomed the constitution in 2005 and sparked the EU's worst ever crisis.Many governments, including France and the Netherlands, have said they will not hold referendums to ratify the treaty.However eurosceptics deem the text to be largely the same as the constitution and want national votes.In order to avoid an unpredictable public vote, the British government was granted key opt-outs on foreign policy, labour rights, the common law and tax and social security systems.The EU leaders, who move on to a summit in Brussels on Friday, deem it vital to streamline the functioning of the bloc, which has grown from 15 to 27 nations since 2004 while pushing deep into the former Soviet bloc."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," said EU Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso in a speech.As in the days of Noah...
