Europe: A Treaty Too Far

The Lisbon Treaty, the successor to the European Union’s rejected constitutional treaty, is set to come into force at the end of this year if Irish voters accept it in a second referendum early this month. Leading European politicians see it as the blueprint for an effective European government, fulfilling an ambition born when the Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago.But is Lisbon a treaty too far for the people of Europe? And are new divisions undoing the dream of a continent at peace with itself and surrounded by a ‘circle of friends’, especially in the east?