This paper examines the relationship between the institutional set-up of the EU policy-making process and the international actorness of the EU in two cases: the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the negotiations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on the implementation details of the Kyoto Protocol.

Since EPIN’s first monitoring report in January, the issue of the European Constitution has grown in relevance and visibility in many member states. Yet there continue to be important differences in how the individual aspects of the text are perceived in the various national debates. This update of EPIN’s survey on the progress and obstacles to ratification of the European Constitutional Treaty provides a snapshot of the approval processes in the different EU member states at a crucial point in time, just before the vote in France and the Netherlands.

Late in 2001, the European heads of government established a Convention to explore the possibilities to make the European Union more democratic, more transparent and more efficient. Little could they have foreseen that the Convention would decide to fundamentally overhaul the existing European treaties and to replace them by an EU Constitution.

It has long been known that enlargement would have dramatic implications for EU decision-making: a structure designed for six would simply collapse under the weight of 25 or more members. This is why EU leaders have been searching for a viable voting-system reform, which will be discussed again in June 2004. This policy brief studies the many options facing EU leaders. Using the Normalised Banzhaf Index, it provides quantitative estimates of the decision-making efficiency and distributions of power for the various schemes proposed.

This paper advances and elaborates on three theses concerning the incoming European Commission:
1. The President of the incoming Commission needs to have a strong profile as a ‘technocrat politician’.
2. The new Commission needs to base its work on a multi-annual mission, agreed with the European Council, and that gives priority to the development of EU strategies in the fields of economic governance and of justice and home affairs.