May I wish readers a Happy New Year!

Today, 1 January, Romania and Bulgaria become full members of the EU, and Slovenia switches to the euro as its national currency. All of the twelve countries who have joined over the last two years (ten from Eastern Europe and two Commonwealth mediterranean countries) intend to join the euro over the next five or six years.

What will 2007 have in store for Europe?

First, a celebration of 50 years since the EEC Treaty was signed in 1957. To mark the occasion, the 27 Heads of government of EU countries intend to issue a declaration on the achievements and purpose of the EU. I hope this emphasises the dynamic nature of the EU, which has evolved over time from the Coal & Steel Community of 1951 (the real first step, the EEC only coming five years later) to the Union we know today through successive treaties, each one agreed by every member state, while it has also grown from six to 27 members through successive enlargements.

Then, more mundane tasks, like developing policies on climate change, cooperation against transnational crime, energy policy, the WTO trade negotiations and so on.

Finally, a return to the issue of the constitutional treaty, which has now been ratified by 18 Member States, but rejected by two. Agreement will be sought in June about what to do about this text, with a large majority wanting to salvage as many as possible of the reforms it contains, but awre that any new text needs the agreement of all 27 countries.

All this will take place under German presidency of the Council of Ministers during the first half of the year and Portuguese presidency in the second half. No easy task, as the "Presidency" has no extra powers, merely the task of chairing one of the institutions and trying to broker fair compromises among 27 governments - some of which (not least the UK and France) will have new leaders.