Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

A quick technical point raised by a couple of you. Like the-real-truth, post 7, I too thought for a while the wheeze of keeping the commission the same size was not likely, because it would require all countries to ratify again. This is apparently not true. There is a provision in Lisbon for a unanimous vote of the council (that is, the leaders of the 27 EU countries) to tinker with this. It would be slightly awkward, because it wouldn't come into effect until Lisbon was law and the Nice Treaty, which does cut the size of the commission, would be in force until then. But that's the sort of thing politicians employ lawyers to get round. The big political difficulty of having to ratify Lisbon doesn't exist, or so it appears: I want to check this with the lawyers, but haven't got round to it.

Clarifications, such as "Lisbon does not affect Ireland's abortion laws," don't need any ratification, either.

Just a point to Kallboll, post 28: nothing here reflects my "hopes, needs or desires". But as a journalist it is my job to "speculate": to point out likely outcomes and possibilities. If something is politically unlikely I will say so. If it's a possible way politicians may proceed I will say that, too. Don't take it for some sort of personal preference. I haven't, in this current run, explored some of the bolder ideas for reform of the European Union suggested here.

While this is the right place for such free thinking, at the moment I am more concerned with exploring what the EU is actually going to do: and none of the 27 current governments want radical changes. But I do want to explore if the EU can be changed, reformed, halted and how that could happen. More on this next week, I hope.

Tomorrow, as presidents and prime ministers gather in Brussels, I'll look at the subject at the core of many postings: what part of "no" do they not understand?

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