Today Finland will become the 18th Member State of the EU to ratify the costitutional treaty.

Of course it is concrete results on economic growth, energy supplies, the environment and so on that matter to people more than institutional tinkering. The problem arises when the machinery blocks or splutters, thereby failing to deliver the desired results.

The EU's machinery has not yet been adapted to having nearly 30 Member States. The constitutional treaty was intended to do that. It has now been ratified by a large majority of the Member States. They remain attached to salvaging as many as possible of the reforms that it contains.

Like it or not, next June's European summit is scheduled to discuss this question and to find a way forward on institutional reform. It is in Britain's interest to support changes such as streamlining the size of the European Commission, re-weighting the votes in the Council of Ministers better to reflect the size of each country, enhancing parliamentary scrutiny, and many other of the useful reforms contained in the constitutional treaty.

How this could be done is still an open question (for an analysis of the options click here) but it is not a debate Britain can avoid and we should therefore approach it, not reluctantly, but as an opprtunity to be seized.