Further to what I reported last Wednesday, the Dutch government has ageed with the judicial advice from the Council of State and decided that a referendum is not justified for ratifying the Reform Treaty, which will be ratified by parliament, as in the UK.

The Reform Treat merely amends previous treaties and the modest reforms to the EU institutions it does make have been deemed not significant enough to warrant a national referendum.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende said that "the new treaty gives answers to the worries of the Dutch population", referring to the concerns the Dutch people had over the shelved European Constitution.

I was interested to see that the Dutch Council of State, the highest judicial authority in the Netherlands, has ruled that the Reform Treaty is sufficiently different from the draft Constitutional Treaty rejected by the Dutch people in June 2005, and does not amend the existing EU treaties as dramatically, so that it will not be necessary to hold a new referendum.

This ruling from the high judicial authority from a country that actually had a referendum on the Constitutional Treaty should give cause for thought to those loudly proclaiming the need for us to have one here on the grounds that the Reform Treaty is the same as the Constitutional Treaty. Even the Dutch don't think that this is the case.

It is curious to see Tony Blair lambasted in Conservative and UKIP circles for having "sold out to Europe". In much of the rest of Europe he is considered to have done precisely the opposite!

To read the Belgian or Italian press, for instance, you would have thought that Blair had single-handedly prevented the rest of Europe from carrying out the modest reforms it sought to the current EU system - or where he was unable to do so to negotiate instead an opt-out for Britain. Blair is, along with the Dutch, blamed for killing off the notion of an EU constitution. He blocked certain changes from unanimity to qualified majority voting. He has an opt-out of the Charter of Rights and kept Britain out of the euro and Schengen. He even opposed a reference in the treaty to the long standing primacy of EU law. I could go on - and many of the criticisms are unjustified. But they do illustrate how the Eurosceptic attacks on Blair in Britain are, to put it mildly, somewhat one-sided in their analysis.

Following on from this month’s earlier decision by the European Commission to take legal action against Apple’s iTunes brand for their discriminatory practices against British consumers, the EU has again this week demonstrated its relevance for consumer protection.

Last week, the EU released figures showing a large increase in the number of dangerous goods withdrawn from sale across Europe. Children’s toys now form the biggest category of banned products, the vast majority of which were made in China. Products banned thanks to ‘Rapex’, the EU’s new rapid alert system, include a Superman figure that contained poisonous high-lead paint, a teddy bear which a child could take apart and choke on the parts and a skin cream that contained a fungus which presents a serious bacteriological risk.

Elsewhere, the EU handed out fines to three brewers for breaking competition laws. Heineken and Grolsch, two brands popular in the UK, along with Bavaria were fined by the European Commission for stifling competition by colluding to fix prices. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said the brewers had “carved up” the market between them, adding that such behaviour was “unacceptable.” Heineken has been fined €219m, Grolsch €31.7m and Bavaria €22.9m.

What to do about the EU constitutional treaty? That's the question we debated yesterday and voted on today.

There are at least two views. One is that this text of the Constitution is dead following the referenda in France and the Netherlands; that we had better start thinking of something else and preparing a different way forward.

The other view is to say: hang on a minute, this text has actually now been ratified by a majority of Member States. The 25 national governments themselves did not declare it dead. Instead, they extended the period of ratification and opened a 'period of reflection'. In that period of reflection we must listen carefully to those who said ‘no’, but we must also listen to the majority who have said ‘yes’ and find a way forward that can ultimately bring the two together.

Eurosceptics shout loudly about the French and Dutch referenda showing that "Europe" has lost touch with public opinion and that the constitutional treaty (presumably unlike any other treaty) was an elitist project which the public is now revolting against. They never mention the referenda in other countries which endorsed the treaty, nor the fact that, in total, more people voted in favour than against.

What we have is not a mass revolt, but a divergence of views. In the EU, when countries' views diverge, the traditional pratice is to talk things through to try to overcome that divergence and to find a compromise solution. In the past, when new treaties have been rejected by a member country, ways have been found, with the agreement of the country concerned, to reassure public opinion and to allow the treaty to be adopted after a new referendum.

This time, it is far too soon to draw conclusions as to the best way forward. The period of reflection has begun by addressing issues of context rather than the text. It is only now that several governments have begun to float ideas as to what could be done about the text.

Parliament concluded that the period of reflection must be extended at least until 2007 to enable a longer and deeper reflection. Until then, all options should be kept open. Of course – as is to be expected – Parliament would prefer to maintain the text, but it recognised that that would only be possible if measures were taken to reassure and convince public opinion. What those measures might be is left open. Parliament pointed out that there are, in theory, many options: supplementary interpretative declarations, extra protocols, rewriting part of the text, rewriting the whole text, drafting a new text and so on.

Which option is best and feasible will only emerge at the end of the period of reflection. The conclusion cannot be drawn now. But one thing is certain: the status quo – that is, the current Treaties – is not sufficient for this Union in its enlarged form to function effectively or democratically. This issue will not go away.

"He who is limping is still walking."

Does this old Yorkshire (or is it Chinese?) proverb apply to the European Union? There is no doubt that the rejection of the EU reform package by France and the Netherlands last year has injured the EU and left it limping.

But it is still very much walking. Common European-wide laws continue to be agreed in those areas where member states consider that this would be mutually beneficial. A medium term budget has been agreed. Countries still outside the EU continue to join the lengthening queue to become full members. Even with a limp, Europe is still moving ahead.

So Austria wants to review the EU constitution. I wrote in the Guardian on the subject:

"The reasons which led all 25 governments to agree that our enlarged EU needs a new rulebook have not simply disappeared. …

"The French "no" campaigners argued that rejecting the constitutional treaty would lead to a re-negotiation where the text could be "improved" - although they did not all agree on what those improvements might be. Nonetheless, it is clear that their intention was to kill the text but not the process - and possibly not all of the text.

"According to the most recent opinion polls, 64% of Dutch and 65% of French people want the constitution to be re-negotiated rather than killed off.

"In that sense, the ball is in the court of France and of the Netherlands. It is up to those countries to say exactly what it is they consider necessary in order for the process to be revived. If they consider that there is no scope whatsoever for agreeing anything along the lines of the constitutional treaty, they must say so and save the rest of us a lot of time."

Within the same week, France and the Netherlands, two founding Member States, rejected the European Constitution with 54.87% and 63% against respectively. These results are seen by some as the death of the constitution. But are they?

So far, 10 member states have ratified the Constitution, nine via their national parliaments (including Latvia just today) and one by referendum. Those states represent about half of the EU population. Twelve other countries have indicated that they will continue with their ratification procedures despite the French and Dutch results.

We are therefore likely to arrive at a situation where the constitution is approved by a large majority of states and people - but not the grand slam of 25 victories formally required for ratification.

What to do in such circumstances? The views of the majority surely deserve at least as much consideration as those of the minority. Above all, the reasons that led all 25 EU governments and the elected Parliament to conclude that the EU needs reform remain on the table. We cannot simply say “too bad: it was a nice idea to make the EU more effective and democratically accountable, but now we can forget it”. Even a large number of no-voters in France said they want to go further with European integration.

There will obviously need to be some accommodation negotiated with the countries which said 'No'. Interpretations of the treaty, footnotes, opt-outs or even a re-negotiation of parts of the text will, no doubt, all be contemplated. But the momentum towards the reforms encompassed in the constitutional treaty must not be allowed to fizzle out.