Brussels, 02/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - Legal experts from member states, the Council, European Commission and European Parliament have reached an agreement on the new EU reform treaty. “The treaty was provisionally accepted by legal experts. The text will be translated, revised and made available until the end of this week”, announced the Portuguese presidency in the late afternoon of Tuesday 2 October in a message to the press. No other details were provided. This text will be sent to foreign affairs ministers for a final political debate during the General Affairs Council on 15 October, before the decisive European Council of Lisbon (18-19 October). In recent days, legal experts have been examining the two main problems pending: the European Court of Justice's competency in justice and home affairs, and the possibility for the United Kingdom to opt-in on future decisions and development measures contained in the Schengen Agreement.
In the meantime, the conference of presidents of the European Parliament on Tuesday afternoon, held an exchange of views with the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, on the state of the intergovernmental conference (IGC). The president of the constitutional affairs committee, Jo Leinen (PES, Germany) as well as three other EP representatives at the IGC: Elmar Brok (EPP-ED), Enrique Baron Crespo (PES) and Andrew Duff (ALDE) also took part in this meeting. (hb)