EU leaders are gathering in Lisbon on Thursday in an effort to bring to an end the 2005 political debacle, when French and Dutch voters said no to the draft European Constitution.

If all goes as planned, the 27-nation bloc will by the end of tomorrow have politically agreed a new "Reform Treaty", but much will depend on how far Italy and Poland are prepared to go to defend their particular demands, the EUobserver commented.

The outline of the treaty was agreed by the same leaders at a summit in June. During the past three months, legal experts from all EU member states have been working to turn the political deal into a legal text.

But a few issues remain to be cleared up before the union finally closes this six-year long chapter of institutional reform.

Poland has pushed ahead with demands that a mechanism allowing countries to block an EU decision for up to two years be written into the treaty, instead of into a legally weaker declaration.

Italy has caused consternation by issuing a last-minute complaint over the number of seats it will have in the EU Parliament after the next European elections in 2009.

Austria has demanded a special treaty protocol, which would allow it to set a cap on the number of foreign university students it takes in.

"We are ready to work within the limits of community law", the commission president said, adding that Austria will be given more time to provide Brussels with additional data.

A similar message was sent to Bulgaria which is unhappy with the spelling of the word "euro" instead of "evro" in Bulgarian version of legal documents - yet another topic that may crop up at the summit.

"The question is serious because the EU is a multilingual project and we have no intention to harmonize grammar or pronunciation", Barroso said, adding however "this issue should not be put as a condition during negotiations of the reform treaty".

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!