"Our new strategy that we have planned to launch in January 2010 is based on four elements," said Turkish EU Affairs Minister and chief negotiator Egemen Bagiş, revealing the following plan.

The EU's external relations commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, looks set to swap portfolios with her trade colleague Catherine Ashton once the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect on 1 December.

Incumbent Traian Basescu won the first round of Romania's presidential election on 22 November, exit polls showed, but the slim margin gave few clues as to who would form the next government and help resolve the economic crisis.

If MEPs were to rally against her following her hearing, it is unclear what the legal consequences would be.

In his keynote speech, he laid out three central aspects the Alliance needs to address to meet current and future challenges.

A deal struck by EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday evening (19 November) marked the latest step of an improbable rise by two erstwhile little-known politicians.

As foreign policy issues will still require unanimity among member states to formulate a common position, the US will still work with European countries bilaterally, Richard Morningstar, a special advisor on energy to US secretary of state Hillary Clinton

"Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe," Mr Van Rompuy said during a meeting of the Council of Europe on the subject of Turkey's possible entry into the EU, held in the Belgian parliament on December, 2004.

The EU aims to give Ukraine a stern warning about financial and political reform at an upcoming summit, as the two sides head into a new, more pragmatic chapter in bilateral relations.

EU leaders have chosen Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to be the first president of the European Council, while UK trade commissioner Catherine Ashton will become the bloc's foreign policy chief.

The Obama administration's worldview is still emerging, but its policies toward Russia and China are already revealing.

Watching the Obama administration launch its "new era of engagement" over the past 10 months, most seasoned observers have pondered two questions: First, if engagement fails, will the Obama team ever acknowledge that it has failed? And what then?

Paris and Berlin, reverting to the old idea of a two-speed Europe, aim to push ahead with a separate headquarters for European defence and the promotion of industrial champions. Britain wants none of that.