Lisbon Treaty signed
Read the NY Times article here
From the NYT: ” The signing raises the prospect of an empowered Europe with an enhanced global stature. The treaty, which may go into effect as early as Dec. 1, creates a permanent presidential post and sets up a more powerful foreign policy chief supported by a network of diplomats around the world. It seeks to make an increasingly unwieldy bloc more workable by putting in place a new voting system, which reflects countries’ population size, while reducing the number of areas where one country alone can block a proposal. It also gives more power to the directly elected European Parliament.
The rulebook the treaty replaces was out of date, created before the bloc began to expand broadly across Europe; it has taken in 12 new nations since 2004.
Some leaders, including President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, insisted there could be no significant further enlargement of the European Union without the Lisbon Treaty in effect.”
You can read more about the Treaty of Lisbon on the Europa site.
The Treaty at a glance.