Maybe the EU doesnt need the Lisbon treaty just now THE EU has certainly learned to live with institutional reform failure. The 3 pre-enlargement efforts either waffled on reform (the 1997 Amsterdam treaty) or botched them (2001 Nice Treaty and the 2003 Constitutional treaty). The 2 post-enlargement efforts were rejected by voters. (See my account of the 10 year "Trail to Failure", with some updates here.) Since my 1994 book on eastern enlargement, I've written many times that enlargement required reform of EU decision-making. Together with Mika Widgren, I've argued that EU decision-making would grind to a halt without it. I still believe institutional reform is necessary, but the data are not co-operating with the theory. The flow of EU lawmaking dropped sharply in the first year after the 2004 enlargement, but subsequent data fail to confirm ...
Anytime
