A reasonably reliable source has given me some tips on outcomes expected from the current summit in Brussels:
* They will reach an agreement on the draft of the constitution. The European Parliament will have even more members, and the rules on qualified majorities will be sorted out.
* They will not agree on a successor to [...]

Busy times in Europe, especially with so much f?tbol to watch. Some notes from all parts:

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Germany’s government and opposition have reached a compromise on laws to regulate immigration. [...]

So pretty much all of the incumbent parties got whacked, amidst predicted low turnout. The BBC has nitty gritty from all 25 member states. There isn’t an overview page, so the link goes to Poland, largest of the new members.
The SLD government there fell, by design, the day after Poland was admitted to the EU, [...]

My old think tank had a discussion about transatlantic issues yesterday, which produced some interesting points:
A member of the German Parliament said that compulsive military service will probably come to an end sooner than outside observers think. A Fistful of Euros, we think it will end pretty soon, and it’s nice to have that view [...]

Overseas Republicans claim that their votes were decisive in putting G.W. Bush into the White House. Diana Kerry, one of Senator Kerry’s sisters, drew a lunchtime crowd of more than 100 in Munich today. Not bad for a surrogate during the middle of a work day six months before the election. It’ll be hard to [...]

They did it.
Organizers of this summer’s Olympic Games in Athens have breathed a sigh of relief after the main stadium’s roof began its long-awaited slide into position. …
The IOC had given the Greek government until May 20 to slide into place the two huge arches — or abandon the project.
The project, which has already missed [...]

After the referendum in Cyprus, I asked a friend of mine who works for the UN Development Program what the local mood was like:
really for the time being it is disappointment…with the amount of misinformation out and the also the tight timelines that were imposed….really hard to know who to blame, but I blame the [...]

More than 7.3 million people living in Germany are citizens of another country. Along with roughly 115,000 other Americans, I’m part of an insignificant minority, outnumbered by Greeks (355,000), Serbs & Montenegrins (570,000), Poles (480,000) and Italians (601,000). All of us, of course, are outnumbered by Turks (1.88 million). Spare a thought, though, for the [...]

The Frankfurter Allgemeine reports today (p. 6) that the international community is willing to give EUR 2 billion in support, if the population of Cyprus will approve a plan for reunification in a referendum next Saturday, April 24. That’s according to represntatives of 34 countries and international financial organizations who met at a donor conference [...]

I don’t know about you, but this sort of thing worries me:
The framework that has buttressed peace in the Taiwan Strait for decades is disintegrating. Changes in Taiwan, as well as some of Beijing’s counterproductive behavior, are undermining its foundations. Unless an improved framework is adopted soon, war across the strait will become increasingly probable [...]