Word: lisbon
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...century's end, Portuguese traders were being eclipsed by the Dutch, English and Spanish. But in many ways, the Western world's awareness of, and infatuation with, all things Asian - from spices to art - can be traced to the early Portuguese merchants and explorers. Now a new museum in Lisbon attempts to reflect the cultural legacy of those pioneering days...
...shock waves from Ireland's vote against the Lisbon treaty will reverberate around the European Union and beyond for many years. European leaders were preparing to focus on pressing external challenges such as climate change, energy security, Russia policy and E.U. enlargement; now they will have to turn inward once again to put time and energy into fixing the E.U.'s creaking institutions. The rest of the world may conclude that Europe's ambition to play a greater role on the world stage should not be taken too seriously: the treaty's biggest aim - to better coordinate the members' foreign...
...Lisbon treaty, the fruit of seven years of interminable negotiations, cannot enter into force unless ratified by all 27 member states. Eighteen have ratified it in their parliaments and a further eight are due to do so later this year. Only Ireland chose to ratify by referendum...
...governments will not abandon their quest for better institutions. Nor will they renegotiate the treaty: they fear that to amend one bit of what is a package of finely balanced compromises could lead to other bits unraveling. That leaves two options. One is to bury the Lisbon treaty but try to save some of its key provisions. A few of them, designed to improve cooperation in matters of justice and foreign policy, could perhaps be introduced without a new treaty. Furthermore, the prospect of Croatian membership, expected in two or three years, offers opportunities. Every time a country joins...
...other, more likely, option is for the governments to press ahead with the Lisbon treaty in the hope that the Irish will change their mind. The E.U. could offer the Irish a protocol to clarify that the treaty does not affect national powers on taxation, and a promise to use the Croatian accession treaty to restore the one-commissioner-per-country rule. The Irish would then vote again on the Lisbon treaty next summer. But that would be risky: the E.U. would appear arrogantly dismissive of the June 12 result, and the Irish could vote no again...