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.

On 21 May 2003, the European Commission presented its long-awaited Communications on Enhancing Corporate Governance and the Reinforcing Statutory Audit in the EU. The Communications follow in the wake of the EC-sponsored studies on corporate governance in Europe, the problems with “America Inc.”, the adoption of the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act in July 2002, and the Winters II report. They contain a long series of legislative proposals and reforms (20 in total), and almost as many proposals for recommendations and further studies in these areas.

The Wider Europe has become a prominent feature in European foreign policy discourse. The EU’s first policy documents on this subject, however, have been thin in substance, mainly seeking to develop more active bilateral relations with countries such as Ukraine and Moldova. At the same time, however, the EU is discussing bilaterally just with Russia a set of common European policy spaces that should be at the heart of a Wider Europe policy.

Abstract This CEPS Policy Brief assesses the potential impact of the draft Constitutional Treaty of the Convention on the Future of Europe on the way the EU operates in international climate negotiations. Although Treaty revisions in the EU are ultimately decided by the EU member states, the Convention’s draft can be seen as an important blueprint that forms the starting point of the negotiations between the member states due to start in October 2003. Among the relevant issues that the authors identify are:

Abstract updated by the author, March 2012.

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