It’s been announced today that France is to hold its referendum on the Constitution on Sunday 29th May.

The debate on the constitution is getting feisty. It’s clear that, at least among our readers, the constitutional treaty has fervent detractors.
Over to Mr Hamilton

The establishment of a Constitution, in time of profound peace, by the voluntary ocnsent of a whole people, is a PRODIGY, to the completion of which I look forward with trembling [...]

The Center for Applied Policy Research (CAP) has put up a page detailing the steps on the way to ratification for the European constitution. Green, yellow and red lights mark the status in each country, and the chart can be viewed by country name or by ratification date. Unfortunately, the page is only available in [...]

It is probably a mere coincident that the last troops of Hungary’s Iraq contingent completed their withdrawal from the current coalition of the willing as the Hungarian Parliament voted 322 to 12 in favor of the European Constitution yesterday, more than the required two-thirds majority. President Ferenc Madl’s signature on the law will formally make [...]

Harry’s Place and Cabalamat both got to this Robert Kagan piece in the Washington Post (registration or Bug Me Not required) before me, and there’s not too much to add to Phil’s rather interesting remarks on it. As a sidenote to his contention that the EU is the Borg - ‘you will be assimilated (and [...]

Despite not being entirely satisfied with the revised team, it was expected that the European Parliament would endorse Jose Manuel Barroso’s second Commission proposal with a large majority in order not to further weaken the Commission, the Parliament’s “natural” institutional ally.
And that’s what happened today. With Rocco Buttiglione and Igrida Udina out, Franco Frattini and [...]

Blood and Treasure informs us of a pressing matter caused by EU expansion - a shortage of lard in British supermarkets. But it may not represent all bad news:
But when you think about it, lard is a great metaphor for the European Union. Wherever you go there?s the same bland, white, fatty mass. But each [...]

It will probably still take some time until another EU referendum will be held in Norway, given the country’s history of rejecting membership in 1972 as well as in 1994. But a new opinion poll suggests that Norwegian membership-proponents have all reason to smile these days. The “yes”-camp is growing as previously undecided voters seem [...]

The US state of Delaware uses the name ‘The First State’ because it was the first of the original 13 states to ratify the US Constitution and today, Lithuania earned itself the possible title of ‘First Country’ in years to come as it became the first country to ratify the European Constitution. Unlike the battles [...]

Jos? Manuel Barroso is now ready to announce the changes he and the concerned member states made to his Commission line up. According to Spiegel Online, he stated during the ongoing European summit in Brussels that
“We now have a good solution.”

Read more… or [...]