EU: European outlook for Balkans and Turkey not questioned

PanARMENIAN.Net - European Union foreign ministers quarreled over the fate of the bloc's new governing treaty after a veto in Ireland slammed the brakes on moves toward a more politically united Europe, reports say.



Several ministers questioned whether the Irish could be hauled back to the polls again, partly because the EU didn't force reruns in France and the Netherlands after their voters torpedoed the proposed EU constitution in 2005.



The failure of the treaty doesn't undermine the process of the EU enlargement, according to Krisztina Nagy, a spokesperson for EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn. "European outlook for Balkans and Turkey is not questioned," she said.



However her statement conflicts with the opinion of Mr Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the European Parliament, who said that EU's further enlargement is impossible unless the Lisbon Treaty takes effect.



The new treaty, signed in Lisbon in December, was meant to point the way out of the impasse triggered by the failure of the constitution. It includes many of the constitution's innovations, such as the 2 1/2-year presidency post.



Known as the Lisbon Treaty, the latest update to the EU's founding Treaty of Rome of 1957, it would also strengthen the foreign-policy chief, give more power to the democratically elected European Parliament and national parliaments, and shrink the European Commission, the EU's executive agency.

The treaty can only take effect once all 27 EU countries endorse it, giving the 862,000 Irish who voted "no" a veto over political life in a group of 495 million people. So far, 18 countries have ratified it through parliament.