Brussels is subdued but largely positive about the future of the EU
As the dust settles from the EU's June summit rows, the mood in Brussels is subdued but largely positive, as many start to eye up the next big challenges. Read original article.
Europe's leaders agreed at the summit the key elements of a new reform treaty, to replace the unloved constitution, but a detailed final deal has yet to be agreed, and could still cause problems. 
Meanwhile, policy-makers are also turning to other challenges, including energy and climate change negotiations, the union's troubled enlargement process with Turkey and the Balkans, and the perennial issue of the EU's budget and its expensive Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
What sort of European players the two new leaders of France and the UK, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown, will turn out to be is also the subject of much conversation in the coffee bars of the European institutions.
Polish threat
One senior EU diplomat says he is not expecting any major new rows over the reform treaty: "Everyone, frankly, is delighted to get this out the way - whether it's wonderful or not... most people are satisfied with what they got."
The Portuguese, now at the union's helm for the next six months, will produce the first detailed draft of the new reform treaty for the launch of the so-called intergovernmental conference on 23 July. They hope that a deal can be done by October, and signed formally in December. 
I do buy into the idea that the Poles don't have the people 
A British Liberal Democrat MEP, Andrew Duff, thinks the treaty deal "has unblocked political energy", though he suggests a deal by October is "pushing it".
But some are worried that the Poles, who almost blocked agreement at the summit, will try to unpick the deal that was done.
The EU diplomat agrees that "that is the unknown, we can't say it will all be fine," and adds that the problem with the Polish negotiating style is as much about expertise as politics.
"I do buy into the idea that the Poles don't have the people," he says. "The [Polish] sherpas were an absolute disaster fighting amongst themselves, and the two deputy prime ministers trying to undermine the prime minister."
UK 'left behind'
The attempt to get the new reform treaty through without any troublesome referendums is also being questioned by some.
Krzysztof Bobinski, of the Unia & Polska Foundation in Warsaw, argues the Union is playing with fire in attempting to get a reform treaty that is very similar to the constitutional treaty through parliaments without the promised referendums. If it has not yet sunk in, in the UK, that it has effectively designed for itself a second-class membership of the EU, it is fast sinking in in Brussels
"The EU governments will probably get away with it but the problem of democratic legitimacy... will not go away.
"Indeed, if it isn't addressed, it will come back to haunt the EU and provoke more crises," he says.
Another debate linked to the reform treaty deal is whether the UK's multiple opt-outs - from fundamental rights to justice and home affairs issues - signal the UK's return to the margins of Europe.
Mr Duff thinks it does. "If it has not yet sunk in, in the UK, that it has effectively designed for itself a second-class membership of the EU, it is fast sinking in in Brussels," he says.
A European diplomat based in London agrees, saying: "Presumably, we now leave the Brits behind."
Mr Duff thinks the provisions in the treaty for smaller groups of countries to go ahead without doubters like the UK - "enhanced co-operation" in the jargon - will now be one of the big issues.
"I think we will have a European public prosecutor as the first feature of deployment of this clause," he says, referring to a proposed post intended to crack down on fraud in the spending of EU funds. 
Others agree that the EU may now finally see the emergence of a core Europe, instead of struggling to agree at 27.
As one French political observer puts it: "We shouldn't totally exclude... a new discussion on a 'core Europe' making further progress on issues like economic governance, tax harmonisation, social protection, foreign and military co-operation, as several EU member states are not ready to make progress at the same pace."
He thinks it is possible that some countries will develop their own regional aid budget and joint military structures - if other member states block progress at EU level, and France and Germany have the will to push ahead.
Unbundling doubts
Antonio Missiroli of the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think-tank, thinks a central group of countries is likely to emerge.
"There will be a group of some 10 countries equally involved in the euro, Schengen and key common policies and a very varying set of countries more on the periphery," he says. 
But Mr Missiroli, like many others, thinks in the short run the big emphasis is going to be on energy policies and climate change and tackling difficult questions like "unbundling energy supply, dealing with national champions and addressing energy security with neighbouring countries".
This autumn is expected to see the discussion of two major energy and climate change packages: one on unbundling and energy security in early October, and another on climate change and renewables in early December.
No-one expects these discussions to be easy. Many of the newer member states from Eastern Europe consider they have already done a lot to reduce emission levels in the last decade, diplomats say. And whether Mr Sarkozy - or indeed Germany's Angela Merkel - will deliver on energy unbundling is open to doubt.
And how Mr Sarkozy and Mr Brown will get on, on the European stage, is so far unclear.
For Mr Missiroli, "Brown is still a big question mark and difficult to predict. And he will have to live with the hyper-presidentialism of Sarkozy."
Others suggest that Mr Sarkozy is "a strangely more unknown quantity than Brown".
Turkey and Kosovo
One of the big unknowns is whether Sarkozy will try to block the EU's already stumbling negotiations with Turkey - one of his campaign promises.
Andrew Duff is unsure how Sarkozy intends to "go for Turkey" but says he can't see the French president blocking it all, "as he would get into a lot of trouble with everyone else".
Some hope Mr Sarkozy can be distracted by a new, inconclusive debate on Europe's borders. 
The EU faces potential problems in the Balkans too. Although membership negotiations with Croatia are proceeding more smoothly than with Turkey, Macedonia has made too little progress for the EU to consider opening negotiations with it yet.
But the bigger worry for EU politicians for now is Kosovo - "the only wild card in the next six months", says Mr Missiroli.
Although he thinks the Europeans will try hard not to split on Kosovo, diplomats in Brussels worry that the Kosovo Albanians - in the absence of a UN resolution - could unilaterally declare independence, be recognised by the US, and then by some but not all of the EU member states.
Once again, the union's attempts to be a serious foreign policy player would look foolish.
And if that is not enough to be getting on with, the union is also due to take an early look at the thorny issue of the budget and reform of the CAP in 2008.
Mr Duff hopes the EU can do something serious with the review - arguing that Michel Barnier, the new French agriculture minister, and David Miliband, the UK's new foreign minister "could be a combination that will click".
But the senior EU diplomat suggests this "difficult" debate could be pushed back to 2009, and that, with a new European Parliament and Commission due in place later on that year, "I am not convinced we will get that far."
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