Poland and Voting in the Council

Poland wants to reopen the debate about voting in the Council. The Polish government has made public its desire to renegotiate the voting system in the Council. The main reason is that the voting system envisaged in the Constitution implies a huge loss of voting power with respect to Germany and a break-up of the accession package which brought Poland to the EU. Whereas the previous government accepted the new voting system as a part of a global package, the new government considers that once the Constitutional Treaty is open for renegotiation, each and every member state has the right to place onto the agenda the elements it dislikes. Whereas this is not often clearly perceived from abroad, the Polish government has adopted a constructive position: rather than a ‘Nice or die’ position, it is demanding that new options be examined, discussed and eventually negotiated. One of them is the ‘square root’ formula, which offers some sort of middle point between the Nice system and the Constitutional Treaty, but there are other possibilities. But, first and foremost, the European Council should allow the issue to be included in the IGC’s agenda. Not to do so would not only amount to repeating the mistakes made during the previous IGC negotiations but would open a question mark about the legitimacy of the EU’s treaty-making processes and threaten the satisfactory conclusion and ratification of the new Treaty

Virtual testing in terms of pedestrian safety improvements

Pedestrian fatalities in traffic accidents continue to be a significant social burden and pose a costly hospitalization problem. Statistical research conducted in European countries onfirms that pedestrians account for 12-35% of severely injured or illed victims of road traffic accidents. The paper outlines the European test procedure and a pedestrian safety guideline drawn up by the EEVC (European Enhanced Vehicle-Safety Committee). In addition, the emphasis is put on the Virtual Testing regarding the current regulations. The great development of computation power and expansion of Finite Element Method enables to widen the possibilities and application fields including pedestrian safety in terms of a collision with the front of a motor vehicle

Synergistic action of estradiol and PGE2 on endometrial transcriptome in vivo resembles pregnancy effects better than estradiol alone

Successful pregnancy establishment in mammals depends on numerous interactions between embryos and the maternal organism. Estradiol-17β (E2) is the primary embryonic signal in the pig, and its importance has been questioned recently. However, E2 is not the only molecule of embryonic origin. In pigs, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) is abundantly synthesized and secreted by conceptuses and endometrium. The present study aimed to determine the role of PGE2 and its simultaneous action with E2 in changes in porcine endometrial transcriptome during pregnancy establishment. The effects of PGE2 and PGE2 acting with E2 were studied using an in vivo model of intrauterine hormone infusions, and were compared to the effects of E2 alone and conceptuses' presence on day 12 of pregnancy. The endometrial transcriptome was profiled using gene expression microarrays followed by statistical analyses. Downstream analyses were performed using bioinformatics tools. Differential expression of selected genes was verified by quantitative PCR. Microarray analysis revealed 2413 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in the endometrium treated simultaneously with PGE2 and E2 (P < 0.01). No significant effect of PGE2 administered alone on endometrial transcriptome was detected. Gene ontology annotations enriched for DEGs were related to multiple processes such as: focal adhesion, vascularization, cell migration and proliferation, glucose metabolism, tissue remodeling, and activation of immune response. Simultaneous administration of E2 and PGE2 induced more changes within endometrial transcriptome characteristic to pregnancy than infusion of E2 alone. The present findings suggest that synergistic action of estradiol-17β and PGE2 resembles the effects of pregnancy on endometrial transcriptome better than E2 alone

How to assess a rotating Presidency of the Council under new Lisbon rules. The case of Hungary. CEPS Policy Brief No. 232/February 2011

The new Lisbon Treaty has completely changed the role of the rotating presidency. Before Lisbon, the political responsibility of each of presidency included almost all areas of the European project with the main decisions being brokered by national diplomats. Under the new system this ‘political’ dimension has been seriously curtailed, if not done away with. The main task of rotating presidencies in the new institutional system is to manage ongoing legislation within the Council and with the European Parliament. To be successful a presidency needs two domestic elements: the first is dedication on the part of the political elites of the country and the second is a public administration committed to playing the role of honest broker in the Council

The European Citizens' Initiative: A Proper Response from the Commission. CEPS Commentaries, 8 January 2010

One of the institutional innovations provided for in the Lisbon Treaty is the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), which aims to engage European citizens with the European project, help mobilise civil society and strengthen pan-European debate on European policies. But what happens if a citizens’ proposal is deemed inadmissible by the European Commission? CEPS Researcher Piotr Kaczyński considers this question in a new Commentary and makes suggestions for an appropriate response by the European Commission and other institutions

Pain in Poland. CEPS Commentaries, 13 April 2010

On April 10th, the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński and 95 others, including senior government officials, political leaders and Polish patriots, were killed in a plane crash near Smolensk, Russia. This Commentary offers an analysis of the aftermath of this tragedy, focusing on the President’s legacy, the future of Polish-Russian relations and the continuity of power in the country