EU leaders meet again to discus the Constitution on the afternoon of June 17 in Brussels with the equally controversial issue of who should be the next Commission president to be discussed later on in the evening.
A new Secretary-General of the Council/High Representative for CFSP and Deputy Secretary-General of the Council for the period as from 18 October 2004 will also be decided.
A new document (CIG 81/04), has been issued by the Irish Presidency as a concise agenda for the discussions on Thursday.
The 16 pages long document contains suggested approaches on outstanding issues, both on the institutions and on other matters.
Another internal document of about 90 pages was also distributed amongst EU leaders, containing the "closed" issues (justice and home affairs, social security issues and common foreign and security issues). There was no much discussion about these.
After the afternoon negotiations which EU leaders have calified of positive, EU voting rights still remained a difficult issue.
Dublin is to come back with a new proposal on Friday (18 June) morning.
The heads of Government and State feel confident that on Friday 18 June 2004 (at the end of the two days EU summit) the text of the new Treaty will be finalised, resulting in a document which will easily be adopted unanimously in the Council.
Then the ratification process will start.
