Third, the Treaty makes the EU more open and more transparent.

The EU is committed to preserving the integrity of the Treaty.

At the European Union s coming EU summit, debate will center on whether to go forward with a mini EU Constitutional Treaty.

The EU welcomes the Moscow Treaty which entered into force on 1 June 2003.

Second, the Treaty makes the EU more democratic and brings government closer to Europe's citizens.

The Constitutional Treaty includes guarantees to ensure that the EU adheres to this principle strictly.

The Lisbon Treaty also succeeds in tackling another major weakness of the EU its ineffectiveness.

Under the Treaty of Rome, Ukraine, as a European country, qualifies as a potential EU member.

The Lisbon Treaty envisages the EU as a highly outward looking entity on the international stage.

The EU regrets that there are three countries, India, Israel and Pakistan, still outside the Treaty.

In the treaty context, however, the EU has not traditionally played a direct role in making treaties.

A final way of thinking about the EU is as the ever closer union referred to in the Treaty of Rome and echoed in the Maastricht Treaty.

But, like financial regulation, nuclear regulation in the EU, even with its Euratom treaty, is still essentially national.

All manner of new legal and constitutional difficulties constantly arise. Is an amendment to the EU treaty required?

First, the Constitutional Treaty guarantees that the Union's institutions will respect the fundamental rights of everyone within the EU.

But, given the Treaty of Nice, this will lead to the EU s internal disintegration and the formation of two camps the EU of integration and the EU of the Common Market.

The Lisbon Treaty was the compromise agreed by EU leaders in the aftermath of the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in popular referendums in France and the Netherlands in 2005.

But why, in light of these developments, the EU bothered to enact the Lisbon Treaty is increasingly hard to understand.

European and international supervision of nuclear material is made by the EU Commission and the IAEA (Euratom Treaty, INFCIRC 193).

That way, if a small minority of EU governments prove unable to ratify the treaty, it would not be torpedoed the way that its predecessor, the Constitutional Treaty, was in 2005.

Ratification of a new EU treaty and the adaptation of national constitutions would inevitably require referenda in a number of countries.

A 1994 free trade treaty with the EU enabled Estonian products to find new markets, and Estonia eventually became one of the most successful postcommunist transition countries, joining the EU and NATO in 2004.

In fact, the Constitutional Treaty defines more clearly which competencies should be shared between the EU and its member states, and how.

Some believe that we will ultimately find a compromise, some ruse to make the Irish succumb, that gives the EU a treaty.

The Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in June plunged the EU into a renewed period of uncertainty about the Union s future.

A decade ago, with the Maastricht Treaty, EU members agreed to respect the history, culture, and traditions of all of their constituent peoples.

In sum, the Constitutional Treaty firmly enshrines fundamental rights in law, and also makes the EU more democratic, more transparent, and more effective.

If the EU continues to be governed under the Treaty of Nice, there will be no room for further political integration or enlargement.

Many thought that this solidarity had been achieved in October 2004, with the signing of the Nice treaty, which outlined an EU constitution.

While the UK is entirely free to leave the EU, given that it is a treaty based union, the move carries serious risks.

Typical examples of this are the stalled Lisbon Strategy, the incomplete Economic and Monetary Union, and now, following the Irish public s blocking maneuver, the uncertain fate of the new EU Constitutional Treaty (the Lisbon Treaty ).

Nineteen years of experience with the Maastricht Treaty, which created both the EU and the euro, has shown convincingly that such limits are unenforceable.

After all, this was how the Schengen Treaty which later became part of the acquis communitaire (the body of EU law) came into being.

The mood in EU capitals is one of nervousness as polling day looms, with the future of the EU in the hands of Ireland s unpredictable voters. On two of the last three occasions that the Irish have been asked to vote on an EU Treaty, they have rejected the proposal.

National parliaments would be given a say in EU lawmaking, as the treaty recognizes the roles of parliaments in the adequate workings of the Union.

Ever since the referendum failures of both the European constitution and the Lisbon treaty, the EU has been flying on autopilot, run by its bureaucrats.

By means of extensive reforms to the structure, operation, and decision making processes of EU institutions, the treaty enhances their effectiveness and enables greater dynamism.

In that regard, the EU will continue its efforts to maintain the authority and integrity of the Treaty and calls on those States not yet parties to the NPT to join the treaty as non nuclear weapon States.

(EU proposal)

EU PROPOSAL

EU Countries

The EU would invite non EU states to do likewise

Certainly, the EU will continue to exist and its institutions will continue to function, for better or worse, on the foundation of the Treaty of Nice.

It is also experiencing a profound economic crisis, which erupted around the same time that the Lisbon Treaty aimed at accommodating EU enlargement was finally approved.

This is the crux of the Lisbon Treaty, which is designed to usher in new institutions and mechanisms aimed at creating more politically cohesive EU external policies.