Both France and Germany on Thursday (25 September) said the current financial crisis would leave important marks on the world economy, with French president Nicolas Sarkozy declaring that the under-regulated system we once knew is now “finished,” and German finance minister Peer Steinbruck saying the crisis marks the beginning of a multi-polar world, where the US is no longer a superpower.

Speaking to an audience of some 4,000 supporters in Toulon, France, Mr Sarkozy said the financial turmoil had highlighted the need to re-invent capitalism with a strong dose of morality, as well as to put in place a better regulatory system.

“The idea of the all-powerful market that must not be constrained by any rules, by any political intervention, was mad. The idea that markets were always right was mad,” Mr Sarkozy said.

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Poland is emerging as another potential problem for Lisbon Treaty ratification, with the office of the president - who has yet to sign off on the document - beginning to publicly argue that the EU pact is dead following the Irish No.

“There are a lot of indications that…the Lisbon Treaty today doesn’t exist in a legal sense because one of the [EU] countries rejected its ratification,” presidential aide Michal Kaminski told Poland’s Radio ZET on Sunday (22 June).

The EU constitution “ended its life” after the French and Dutch referendums in 2005 he added, with conservative MP Przemyslaw Gosiewski - from the president’s Law and Justice party - taking the same line on the radio talk-show.

“In my opinion - as a lawyer - we have the same situation as after Holland and France…the rules on ratification of the [Lisbon] treaty unequivocally say that after the Irish rejection, it has not been ratified,” he explained.

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said the European Union will not be able to expand further without ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

An EU summit in Brussels has exposed divisions over how to proceed with the reform treaty - which was rejected by Irish voters in a referendum last week.

A decision on what to do next is expected to be postponed until October.

The leaders are now expected to discuss

Zimbabwe. A draft statement threatens increasing EU sanctions on the country.

Wrong signal

Mr Sarkozy’s comments about EU expansion came after clear divisions emerged over the future of the treaty and the meeting decided that the Irish should report back in October on possible ways out of the impasse.

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European Union foreign ministers are gathering in Luxembourg for talks on how to respond to the Irish rejection of the Lisbon reform treaty.

Voters in the Irish Republic, the only state to hold a referendum on Lisbon, rejected the treaty by 53.4% to 46.6% last Thursday.

The treaty cannot be implemented unless approved by all 27 EU states.

But the majority of EU members agree that those who have yet to ratify the treaty should carry on and do so.

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All eyes are on Ireland this week as the European Union awaits the result of the country’s EU treaty referendum on Thursday with a mixture of relief that the day has finally come around and fear that it may bring a “no” vote.

For much of the past half year, Ireland’s lonely referendum route – it is the only one of the 27 member states to undergo the more unpredictable public poll rather than parliamentary ratification – has been the main topic of conversation in Brussels.

But while discussion in the EU capital has been feverish, actual political activity has slowed appreciably as the bloc’s institutions and its officials have sought not to upset the Irish electorate with controversial new announcements. “Only after the Irish referendum” has been the familiar if unofficial refrain among EU diplomats.

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Hungary is spearheading a push by several new EU member states to get the EU’s CO2 emission targets recalculated.

Hungary argues that using 2005 figures as the basis for cutting CO2 emissions fails to recognise the progress made by ex-Soviet bloc countries before then.

In January the European Commission set out plans for cutting carbon dioxide emissions based on 2005 levels.

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A new United Nations report says the Balkans, once known as a hotbed for crime and violence amid Yugoslav wars and the collapse of Communism, have become safer than western Europe.

The Balkans have made huge strides in cutting conventional crimes such as homicide, robbery, rape, burglary and assault but challenges still remain in the form of organized crime and its links to politicians and business, a new UN report concludes.

“Some of you will be surprised,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which compiled the report, at a news conference in Brussels. “In general, if you look at conventional crime, the levels of these crimes across the region are by far lower than they used to be, particularly at the beginning of the 1990s.”

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Citizens from the UK, Latvia and Austria are the least convinced that EU membership is positive, while Bulgaria appears to be the more eurosceptic of the two newest EU states, according to a Eurobarometer survey released on Tuesday (18 December).

Some 34 percent of Britons, 37 percent of Latvians and 38 percent of Austrians see their countries’ EU membership as a “good thing”, while only 37 percent of British and Cypriot citizens as well as 42 percent of Hungarians and Austrians think that their country has generally benefited from EU membership, according to the latest Eurobarometer survey.

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The prime ministers of Italy and Romania have urged the European Commission to help EU countries cope with the integration of other member states’ citizens - in particular of Roma origin.

In a joint letter to the commission president Jose Manuel Barroso, the centre-left Italian leader Romano Prodi and Romanian liberal leader Calin Popescu-Tariceanu suggested Brussels should do more to deal with EU migration.

“The destination member states don’t have on their own the means to confront the difficulties that face them,” the two leaders wrote on Wednesday (7 October), according to AP agency.

Read the full article at the EUObserver by clicking here.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday (24 September) laid down two conditions for France to rejoin the military command structure of NATO after an absence of over 40 years.

In an interview with The New York Times, Mr Sarkozy said he had no problem with returning to the military alliance’s integrated command, from which French president Charles de Gaulle withdrew in 1966.

But he said that first European defence must move forward and that top positions in the US-led NATO organisation should be reserved for French personnel.

“I would make progress on a European defence a condition for moving into the integrated command, and I am asking our American friends to understand that,” said the president.

“A Europe capable of defending itself independently would not be a risk for the Americans; it would be an asset.”

Read the full article at the EUObserver by clicking here.