BRUSSELS - Fresh from ending a decade-long institutional stalemate with a new reform treaty, EU leaders will turn on Friday to the "real world" challenges of globalisation, immigration and tensions in the Balkans.
A day after signing a pact aimed at overhauling the bloc's outgrown structures at an elaborate ceremony in Lisbon, leaders of the EU's 27 states will be determined to show in Brussels that the navel-gazing is over.
Concerned about instability in the Balkans caused by Kosovo's push for independence, the leaders were due to say that Serbia should be offered an accelerated path towards joining the EU, according to a draft summit declaration seen by Reuters.
They will also raise the prospect of tougher sanctions on military-ruled Myanmar, the draft showed, and seek to address public concern over the strain on European job markets from immigration and cheap imports.
"The Lisbon Treaty provides the Union with a stable institutional framework for the foreseeable future," EU leaders will agree, according to an early draft of the final communique.
"The Union will be able to fully concentrate on the concrete challenges ahead," it promises.
Replacing the more ambitious constitution abandoned after French and Dutch voters rejected it in 2005, the Lisbon Treaty preserves most of the key institutional reforms but drops contentious symbols of statehood such as a flag and anthem.
EU leaders hope it will streamline the bloc's structures to cope with enlargement after it opened its doors to 12 mostly ex-communist states in 2004 and 2007. Critics say it will curb national sovereignty further and put more power in Brussels.
Friday's summit is due to agree on a mandate for a "reflection group" on the long-term future of the bloc, naming a chairperson for the panel, due to report to EU leaders in June 2010.
REFLECTION
