ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝

They are hanging out the flags round my way. And it's not in celebration, but despair at political failure.

Each day another black, red and gold flag seems to sprout from the window of a house or apartment. I'm tempted, just out of devilment, to stick a black lion rampant on a gold field out of my bedroom window. But the Flemish flag might not go down too well in my French-speaking part of Brussels.

The profusion of flags is a patriotic but also partisan response to the failure of political parties to form a government. It’s now 108 days after .

But this is not some vague expression of frustration but a specific display by French-speakers of loyalty to king and country, amid speculation that Belgium may bust in two. "I haven’t seen any around my way," sniffed a Flemish friend, when I mentioned the flags.

Well, he wouldn't. For in many ways the flags are a protest against the man who is still expected to become prime minister of Belgium. To the flag hangers, represents those who don’t care overmuch about the existence of the country or the rule of the royal family.

He’s the one who dismissed Belgium as "an accident of history" and has questioned whether French-speakers are intellectually capable of learning his language. Given the royal family’s own questionable skills in that direction, it’s not at all polite.

Demonic issues

The obvious sticking point between the potential coalition parties is a reform package aimed at devolving more power to the , giving them more power over health and the courts.

There’s also a side issue of the problem in Flemish towns around Brussels, where some feel not just French-speakers but French political parties are taking over. But for once the devil is not in the detail but in the demonic cultural and linguistic issues lurking behind these particulars.

Belgium is a cosy, friendly country, a good place to live if you don’t want to live life at a breakneck pace. Or in my case, if you want an ideal base to throw yourself in to the hurly burly and retreat from it at decent intervals. But it is a country starkly divided on linguistic and cultural lines, which are far more firmly drawn than in some countries where such divisions have had far more brutal expressions.

It’s partly economic. I wrote some time ago about that purported to show that if Belgium split, Flanders would be one of the richest countries in Europe, French-speaking Wallonia one of the poorest. Crucially, this divide is reflected in the political parties.

Cliches and stereotypes are dangerous generalisations, but it's necessary to refer to them to explain the tensions. Many Flemish see the French either as disdainful one-time aristocrats who are too arrogant and dismissive to learn the language of their fellow countrymen, or as lazy good-for-nothings high on tax subsidies, and trapped in an area that until recently was dominated by a apparently unaware of the economic direction of the last 20 years and allegedly corrupt.

One of my Flemish friends confesses that he finds his Francophone countrymen far more "foreign" than the Brits, like me. It’s probably an arrogant, very English way of seeing it, but to me there is no denying that Belgium can seem like an argument between the more "Anglo-Saxon" Flemish and their French-speaking neighbours. For humour or for approaches to the economy they would tend to look to the UK rather than France.

Two of everything

There’s another big difference, although I am not sure what political impact it has. The Walloons look up to France: they follow its politics more closely than their own, watching French films and reading French books. In return, the French on the whole sneer at their northern neighbours: one guidebook I have begins, "If you want to hear the language of Voltaire spoken in a German accent, go to Belgium."

The Flemish, on the other hand, laugh at Dutch food, drivers and landscape, while maintaining they speak a purer Dutch than their neighbours in the Netherlands.

I must admit I hadn’t clearly seen the political problem, until I saw a think tank make this point in about the divide: Belgium is a federal nation without federal-level parties.

In Belgian politics there are two of everything. Socialists. Liberals. Christian Democrats. There’s a Francophone party and a Flemish party. Each with their own leaders and policies.

This is, I think, unique. It’s true in Germany the Bavarian CSU keeps itself proudly separate from the Christian Democrats but the same does not apply to the Social Democrats, Socialists or Greens. In the USA the differences between southern Democrats and their northern colleagues is well-known, but just imagine if they ran different candidates for president.

Unfortunately, the linguistic divide is not a new phenomenon but something that dates back to the country's foundation.

In 1830 the Netherlands ruled here. The linguistically repressed Walloons took their cue from the latest revolution in France and the upper and middle class liberals took to the streets. A provisional government was set up and eventually a kingdom established. One where the French language was the only official one and Flemish peasants accused of a crime couldn’t defend themselves because they couldn’t understand the charges or reply in their own language.

This only really changed in the 1960s, when linguistic liberalism combined with the decline of heavy industry to give Flanders more of a say. In Mr Leterme’s accidental country, the resentment between the two linguistic communities is not a tension that has sprung up over time, the conquest of one over the other was what brought Belgium into being.

An EU protectorate?

So a touched a raw nerve a few weeks ago urging a “praline divorce”.

Going up a lift in a shopping centre, to do some filming for an unrelated story, a man noticed "ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝" plastered all over our equipment. He wrongly assumed we’d come over from London to film a report on the state of the country. "Filming a story on Belgium? Tell people the Economist is wrong. We will not split," he said.

Perhaps not, but

Brussels is perhaps the best reason for staying together. Like parents who muddle along because of the children, the recurring question, "But what about Brussels?" may save Belgium. Brussels is at least in theory bilingual and just about works. It certainly wouldn’t be possible to divide. But if the worst comes, it could always be declared an EU protectorate, I suppose.

What is life like in a country with only a caretaker government keeping things ticking over, with no new initiatives and no new directions?

Looking out of my window, it seems fine. There are flags, but no furore. Belgium may one day fall apart, but its lack of governance doesn’t seem to have pushed it over the edge.

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The European Union is going to get rid of one of its oddest rules, whereby farmers are ordered not to grow anything on part of their land and then paid for not doing their job.

Instead of scrapping it, perhaps the European Union should be thinking of expanding the idea?

Journalists could be paid by the "not word" for not turning in tedious articles, and whole pages could be left blank. In an effort to tackle climate change, car manufacturers could be paid for letting assembly lines run idle as workers watch not cars trundle off them. Politicians, perhaps, could reward their loyal foot soldiers with pints and pub lunches for not canvassing in not-to-be-held general elections.

Be that as it may, is to be set aside. It's a penny to a euro that it will never come back. It was an answer to over-production. Since the foundation of the EU, farmers were paid to produce, even if nobody bought their goods. Hence those butter and grain mountains and wine lakes.

So, about 15 years ago someone had the bright idea of paying them not to produce on 10% of their land. But there are no grain mountains now. A bad harvest in Australia and southern Europe, and an export ban in Ukraine have meant less grain on the market and so higher prices.

So today will be asked The whole idea will be reviewed in November and the is keen to get rid of set-aside altogether.

Not everyone is happy. One side-effect of set-aside is that it can safeguard wildlife, particularly if it's land that is never cultivated, rather than rotated year by year. The says it could be a disaster. The French has particularly benefited from the policy.

And you thought that was the in general.

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As expected, the Dutch cabinet has decided not to hold a referendum on the

There are rumours that after a decent interval we'll find out that some policies the Dutch Labour Party didn't like have been dropped.

The prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, said that it was a normal treaty and only needed a normal ratificiation procedure, otherwise what was parliament for?

Sounds familiar?

But as I explained earlier, the government decision may not be the end of the story.

Dutch Europe Minister Frans Timmermans, one of the Labour members of the cabinet, told me he thought the government's arguments against a popular vote were "pretty convincing". But he acknowledged the parliament could still decide to organise a referendum - as it did in 2005.

Listen to my interview with him here.

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People whistle through the Binnenhof’s cobbled square on their bikes, scarcely giving a glance to either the rather lovely understated architecture or the politicians bustling in and out of the many ministries.

This part of The Hague could be a quiet monument to democracy. Even a rather showy fountain in brown and gold doesn’t undermine the impression of a rather harmonious relationship between the rulers and the people who chose them.

The office of the Dutch Prime Minister in one courtyard, the entrance to the in another, various ministries scattered around these two unpretentious courtyards, which have long been the seat of the government of the Netherlands.

But when cabinet ministers meet at Number 19 later today, will they give the people a say over the new European

My strong guess is No, but as you’ll see that won’t quite be the end of the story.

The is a coalition. The dominant partners, the , are - like all the governments in the European Union - in favour of the treaty and anxious to avoid a referendum. Gordon Brown too will be hoping they don’t hold one.

It was of course the Days after the French voted "Non" their "Nee" made sure it was in effect dead. This saved Tony Blair from holding a referendum he never wanted. But a second Dutch referendum now would put wind in the sails of those who want one in Britain and pile the pressure on Mr Brown.

Curious allies

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, a Christian Democrat, said I would have to wait and see what the cabinet decided but he was sure there would be a unanimous decision.

"We listened to the Dutch public, they said No to the constitutional treaty, now we have a treaty which is completely different," he said. "It is not forecasting a European superstate, there is a clear division between what should be decided in member states and what should be decided in Europe."

The Dutch Christian Democrats have very curious allies in their argument. The shot to prominence during the referendum campaign, noisily and successfully championing a No. So you would think their position would be obvious. But they don’t like referendums, and never have.

But it's not just that. One of their MPs, Esme Weigman, told me: "The new treaty is just a modification of the Treaty of Nice, it's another situation from when we had a constitutional treaty. The decisions during the summit in June were very good."

They now have three seats in the cabinet so I suggested that cynics might say the reason for their change of heart was obvious, that they were now part of the government and wanted to stay part of it.

She said, "Yes, people say the Christian Union has changed. But it's not the Christian Union that has changed but the cabinet that has changed on Europe. The most important thing is now Europe will go forward in co-operation but not go forward to a United States of Europe."

The problem for the Dutch government is their partners. It's the party's policy to hold referendums. Even though it is for the treaty.

The Dutch parliament is a rather wonderful building, combining old and new with sweeping empty halls and strange giant mobiles hanging in the air. Comfy too: I wish we had had squishy leather sofas and flat-screen TVs during my days at Westminster. It makes the traditional journalistic job of hanging around to “doorstep” ministers a lot more comfortable.

Agonies

The most interesting politician I spoke to was Labour's Luuk Blom. He said: "I’m in favour of a referendum It's part of our programme, referendums are a new way to decided things in a country, to link people more closely to politics. You have to take the people very seriously. The No was a very strong No... I’m in favour of a referendum, and the chances are 50/50."

But he likes the treaty and was obviously in some agonies about what the people might decide if they did get that vote, a view that I think is very common among the political class in the Netherlands, and indeed elsewhere.

"Is it possible to take a No this time? Holland would be in a very difficult position in Europe. We’d be on the bench in football terms. When the Dutch said No two years ago there was a possibility to start new negotiations. That’s not possible any more. This treaty is it. So if we said No, would we be in the European Union? Maybe that should be the question."

The parliament is open to a constant stream of visitors who come to listen to the debates and look at the building. But during the time I was there I never saw anyone approach the displays and the giant yellow flags that cover one wall and part of the floor, emblazoned with the question "Hoezo EU?" ("What’s the EU about?")

There were different views, of course, from those I spoke to, but none of the No-voters said they were happy with the new treaty. In fact none of them mentioned the treaty itself: their complaints were broader.

Professor of political science at the surprised me, telling, me that he thought a referendum was likely. He added: "The mood is Eurosceptic, there is no sense of European identity. There is still a sense that the European space is a space of globalisation, of Islamisation, that Brussels is a superstate. The climate is still quite volatile, so the government is afraid of a second failure. It's still quite easy for the Eurosceptics to win a referendum."

This is exactly the fear of politicians that people, supposedly voting on a technical matter, will give the answer to a big political question, and an answer which most European politicians do not like - and regard in fact as untenable, unpractical, unworkable.

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“They saw : of course are going to sit up and take notice.”

I was both pleased and irritated by the comment from a very senior insider in the European Commission.

Pleased because it confirmed a pet theory I’d had on Monday that the court’s decision would embolden the commission to take tough measures in the energy market.

But irritated that I had ripped this thought out of my TV piece on Monday after being told by rather more junior insiders that there was no read across between the two issues.

Relations are not good between . What have we had since that last , when things were so bad that there was no joint declaration at the end? . The . Now the commission is talking the sort of language that Eastern Europeans think Russia needs to hear.

is intended to give the EU a bit of leverage and put pressure on President Putin.

For years the EU has been trying to get him to sign up to the . He rejected that at , that time in Finland. Then Georgia and the murdered Russian journalist were top of the list of irritating grit that failed to produce a pearl.

The second best thing would be if he signed up to the essential bits of it in a new partnership agreement. But there has been no progress there either.

But behind all the worries lurks the fear of a new cold war. And I mean “cold” not as in lukewarm relations but lukewarm homes and baths. The Russian giant feared by Europe is not its giant army but its giant energy company.

Gazprom supplies a quarter of Europe’s energy needs and every conceivable projection shows it will supply more and more in the future. It wasn’t the cold alone that caused shivers to run down European spines when and hit Western Europe as well. There was a less publicised incident at the beginning of this year when were disrupted. The power of Gazprom to hurt Europe for political or commercial reasons is really dreaded.

The plans for energy liberalisation raised another worry. What if the commission gets its way and and all the rest of them dutifully split off their generating side from their distribution networks - and Gazprom swoops in and scoops up Europe’s grid? They wouldn’t just be able to turn the taps off, they’d own the pipelines as well.

This is the commission's answer: “Non-EU companies cannot own a controlling stake in an EU network unless international agreements are in place, which explicitly allow for this situation."

Perhaps something a bit like, well, an energy charter?

But the killer is this, a totally hypothetical company seeking to own a controlling stake would also have to be broken up, just like its European counterparts.

Another quote from the commission: “They will have to demonstrably and unequivocally comply with the same unbundling requirements as EU companies.”

This is a hurdle set so high that Gazprom cannot jump it.

No surprise then that the Russian company has issued a tetchy statement saying it will examine the implications for price and energy stability, and that the company “feels certain that its voice will be heard”.

Some in the know think Gazprom has misread the runes and thinks that the German government will stop this in its tracks. One source tells me: “They’ve forgotten it's Merkel not Schroeder in charge now.”

It should make for a very interesting summit in Portugal in October.

But this story of energy liberalisation shows something else about the European Union. Whether on competition or on climate change they are setting a global pace.

You may dislike that pace, and you may not regard the EU as a force for good, but you cannot deny that it is making the running. In worldwide business law it seems the highest, not the lowest common denominator is what counts.

The connection between Microsoft and Gazprom is that the European Union is the toughest regulator in the world, and like it or not, it is making rules that companies, whether based in Russia or America, will have to follow.

Listen to my interview with commission president Jose Manuel Barroso here.

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A row over lunch has failed to sort out Poland’s opposition to a

There are still plans for a big conference in Lisbon against the death penalty but so far there are no signs of a European Union statement to go with it. Twenty-six other justice ministers failed to persuade the Polish government round to their point of view.

Bodies like the European Union regularly hold days for this, that and the other, and mostly they are pretty uncontroversial.

The Poles don’t have the death penalty of course, and they say the day is pointless as But their bigger point is their insistence that it would be far more worthwhile to have a day that is opposed to "all violations of the human right to life". They accuse the EU of promoting "abortion, destructive lifestyles and euthanasia".

The British justice minister and former foreign secretary Jack Straw seemed almost glad to be back in Brussels when he met the British press after this lunch. He was adamant that to hold a day against the death penalty was right and went on to praise the Portuguese, , for forcing the issue.

He also said that Portugal was the first European country to abolish the death penalty, back in the 19th Century, and that this had held even during the years of dictatorship.

You really do learn something every day in this job.

He also said: "I think the death penalty is something people have intense debates about, but abortion and euthanasia are seen as a private matter. I will make this comment about United States politics: I do not wish the United Kingdom to end up in a position where issues of conscience become a big party and partisan issue."

Who’s right, Jack or the Poles?

Listen to the full answer here... the bit missing in the middle is my interjection “Why?” which the microphone didn’t pick up.

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Huge sighs of relief around the European Commission, as give an unexpectedly wholehearted and against

If they had instead backed the company it would have left the commission’s reputation - or perhaps I mean self-image - as a champion of consumers and crusader for competition in tatters.

That would have been particularly galling in a week when President Jose Manuel Barroso is due to unveil the plan to break up big energy firms in Europe. On that front, the commission has had to compromise and it is expected their plan will to offer two options. One would be full , as it's called in the unlovely jargon. The second would be a compromise. It would mean that the monopoly would be broken up to an extent, still owned by the same company but operated by different people. Who presumably have to peer over Chinese walls and not talk to each other.

It's a case where the Germans and French, who prefer the latter, weaker choice are likely to win over the Brits and the Dutch, championing a more liberal market.

Microsoft’s home maybe the world’s biggest superpower but the USA doesn’t have politicians sitting around the table in the council and commission so it may lack the clout of or Germany’s in this arena.

The commission is now looking forward to piling fines on Microsoft if it doesn’t hurry up and make sure its systems can talk to those of other companies. They are also looking at two new complaints against Microsoft Office and Microsoft Vista.

It’s always nice meeting someone who is obviously having a good day and was almost overflowing with joy when I met him earlier today. He’s a lawyer who’s been pursuing Microsoft for the last nine years and founded the

This quixotically named organisation is made up of companies who say their business has been damaged by Microsoft. The basic claim against Microsoft is that when you buy a PC or laptop with a Microsoft operating system you also get Windows media player and a whole lot of other things that allegedly mean those who invent rival software have no realistic chance of selling their product, even though it might be a lot better.

At this point I’m sure I can hear cries of “Buy an Apple then!” but Vinje seems as much concerned with the economic benefits of liberal competition than the real or imagined failings of Microsoft’s various products.

He says it is too late for rival media players to make any impact but not for new ideas still in production, like voice or handwriting recognition. He goes on to make an interesting claim.

If you are a young computer scientist and you come up with a bright new idea and you don’t have any money, you need independent financing and you have to go to a venture capitalist. And one of the top questions on a venture capitalist's list of issues today is, “Is there any chance Microsoft might bundle a similar product?” If your answer is “Yes, I might be standing in the way of Microsoft,” then you don’t get any money and the market is deprived of an innovation.

Will that change, I asked? “That depends if Microsoft complies with the principles of today’s decision.”

The commission will be watching...

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Europe has had its first vote on what sort of cars we will all drive in the future.

The proposed European Union law restricting CO2 emissions from cars is over its first hurdle: a vote on more than 20 amendments in the European Parliament’s .

I’ve promised to follow the development of this law for the ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝ News website and Radio 4’s PM programme for several reasons.

First, it’s important - it will affect anyone who drives a car.

Then, I’m interested to see how the forces balance out: the powerful German-dominated car industry versus ever-growing concern about the environment. Will the original proposal be beefed up or watered down? Also, it’s a chance to educate myself on how exactly the EU makes a law - a practical civics lecture for both me and anyone else who is interested.

The environment committee was voting on written by , and the amendments to it tabled by committee members.

A number of his innovations were thrown out.

His plan to ban cars that do more than 100 mph was defeated.

He’d suggested giving the car manufacturers more time, but obliging them to meet a tougher target. That was thrown out, but so was . So now the idea is manufacturers must reduce CO2 emissions to an average of 120g of carbon dioxide per kilometre by 2012, by engine emissions alone.

But Mr Davies isn’t disappointed. He told the committee that although his compromise had been rejected he was pleased because the result was “environmentally ambitious”.

Listen to him here.

The German Green on the Industry Committee, , said afterwards: “A large majority of MEPs voted for a binding average target of 120g/km to be achieved through engine technology alone. This is a welcome rejection of the so-called 'integrated approach' to this longstanding target - a dilution . We particularly welcome the support of the committee for the limit to be achieved by 2012. Delaying its introduction would only reward laggards and delay the necessary technical advances.”

The Tories in the European Parliament are striving to be more ambitious still.

“In order to offer the industry greater certainty with which to plan for the future, we recommend that an incoming Conservative government adopts an emissions target for new cars of between 80g and 100g by 2020," said their leader, .

"This target is merely a continuum of the downwards trajectory envisaged by the EU’s current proposal, which would see emissions reduce by 4-5% a year to 2012. Continuing this reduction path yields emissions of no more than 100g per kilometre by 2020.”

Labour MEP , a member of the environment committee, said:

"We firmly expect this vote to be a signal to the car industry to smarten up their act and to carry out the measures they themselves have agreed to. The 120g/km to be met on an obligatory basis by 2012 is the strongest message we can send to firms who have been dragging their feet and not understood that European consumers are now anxious to drive cleaner cars. Unless we have a strong European position on this issue, other car manufacturing countries outside the EU will steal the march on us."

For once a pretty common line from the politicians be they red, blue, green or yellow. But are they right?

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I got some strange looks last week tramping through Faro airport carrying a pair of wellingtons. Outside, the sun was blazing and there was no mud in sight. The boots were the legacy of my - some 12 days and four countries later it seemed a long while since I fell in that bog.

But the odd looks I got weren’t half so quizzical as the look as I would have given myself - had that been physically possible - when I caught myself reading in my guidebook about a system of agriculture in northern Portugal, where people farm shifting sand dunes.

“That sounds interesting, I’d like to see that,” I thought to myself, before doing a double-take. Agricultural systems were not something I’d found fascinating before. But they say travel broadens the mind.

Since I’ve been back in the urban landscape of Brussels I’ve been reading your comments, and they’ve prompted some thoughts. There’s also a correction and a clarification to get off my chest.

Green romance

I think Richard is spot on. Returning to Bucharest, rather starry-eyed from my encounter with the hillside herdsmen, I did reflect that however romantically quaint the encounter, it was more important that Ion’s son should have all the opportunities that Europe can offer. I asked myself whether it was better that this (perhaps non-existent) offspring stayed on the hillside frightening off bears, like his dad, or had the chance to end up, say, as a correspondent in Brussels for Romanian TV. Preserving mosaic agriculture may not help create this opportunity.

Of course, the European Commission would say its aim was precisely to get the balance right between keeping the countryside as it is and making sure that people who work the land can make a good living.

But Richard raises a wider concern: is environmental protection driven by romance? In all the countries I visited, people in the countryside claimed that many environmentalists lived in big cities and saw the rural landscape as a sort of reservoir of peace – a contrast to the lives they actually lived. Standing on the hillside in Romania talking about the need to preserve mosaic agriculture, the words of the Polish headmaster came back to me: “Europe wants us to be a theme park.”

This worry is more acute when you look at Europe as a whole, particularly because the new countries that joined in 2004 and 2007 are, on the whole more rural, with a less developed infrastructure than Western Europe. In Britain and Germany we destroyed the forests that covered the land more than a millennium ago. Who are we to tell others not to build the cities and roads and bridges that generate wealth? Or should we admit our past was a mistake and strive for a better balance in these countries?

Already it is clear that this is a big argument. One claims that in Eastern Europe the environment has been “shockingly marginalised”.

Manmade habitats

Several people thought I had fallen down on my duties by not spelling out whether the European Union was financing the bypass expected to go through the . Apologies for that. As so often with the EU, the facts are hard to pin down. The best I (and the Commission) can do is: the bypass itself has received no specific funding, but the road it is part of, the Via Baltica, has. So far in Poland a part of the road north of Warsaw has got just over 140m euros. The Polish government is applying now for funding for three other stretches of the road: it could get up to 1.2bn euros.

So, in short, the bypass itself won’t get any EU money. While some of you feel that is the crucial point, that isn’t the case legally: the EU has stopped the road because it breaches a directive on the environment.

It is perhaps important to reflect on what is being saved.

It’s a bit passé to call environmentalists “conservationists” but it’s a good word. Many do want to conserve the status quo. All three of the special habitats I looked at were, to a greater or lesser extent, created by man. Most of the environment in Europe is made what it is by farming. But at what point do we shout: “Freeze!”

Doubtless, environmentalists would have wanted to stop the British enclosure system which gave us the hedgerows and their birds. No doubt much was lost even earlier, when grasslands were ploughed up for farm land. What marine species were lost when Holland was rescued from the sea?

On I asked Guido Schmidt of whether in 50 years’ time his successors would be arguing to save the strawberry farms because a rare sort of butterfly had learnt to thrive on them. He laughed, and said that technology had reached such a pitch, and such fundamental changes could be made by man, that what was left untouched had to be saved.

The European Union, like all political institutions, has to perform a constant balancing act. Its commitment to preserve a diversity of species and habitats couldn’t be clearer. But EU money is one of the major engines of development, funding new roads and dams and the like. Brussels faces heavy pressure from well organised and well funded worldwide lobby groups, which are determined that the environment should be the main priority. Perhaps emotive, cute, animals are used to push the commission to put the environment, not development or wealth creation, at the top of its agenda.

Hand milking

A correction and an apology, I wrote that . It is not. The commission points out that there is no specific rule banning milking by hand. The regulations are aimed at clean milk and, “Technically when hand milking is done properly, hands do not touch the milk.”

But up on that hillside there was no running water and no electricity and I do wonder whether Ion’s milk, and indeed his hands, “comply with clearly-defined hygiene rules in order to avoid any contamination.”

The commission does, however, say: “Special conditions may be granted by the competent authority to take account of traditional production methods.” And the Romanian government says it will allow hand milking to continue.

So finally on to the question of my depiction of Romania raised by Regina. First of all, Ion and his friends are not gypsies or Roma. It wouldn’t matter to me if they were, but it’s a straight fact. The more important point is that Regina feels that by showing such images I’m perpetuating a damaging stereotype.

I do understand that Romania is not all antiquated farms and cute carts. While I was there, my suitcase broke and in the search for a new one I can testify that the hypermarkets are uncannily identical to those in Belgium, and the luxury shopping malls rival anything in Leeds or London.

I know that the country has a long record of achievement and the young people are particularly skilled in sciences. But none of this is relevant to a piece on preserving the environment.

But that’s an easy get-out for me. The point is, Romania is a bit different, at least to Western European eyes. Journalists in general remark on what is different, strange, striking. It is important we put what we find into context and don’t leave readers or viewers with the idea that the exception is the norm.

But during my few days in Romania I passed 40 or 50 horse-drawn carts on the roads. They are very common. You don’t see that in Berlin or Birmingham. Actually, you don’t see it in Spain or Italy. I’ve never seen it in my travels to Turkey or Kosovo. So Yes, we will show pictures of this. Because it’s unusual, and makes the point that a sort of agriculture unchanged for centuries still exists here alongside others. It’s not an attempt to demean Romania.

A Romanian colleague who was a tour guide in Ceausescu’s time tells me one of their duties was to stop Western tourists taking such pictures. One of the reasons that this particularly nasty dictator destroyed villages and herded villagers into half-built tower blocks was that he was obsessed with the fear that the outside world saw Romania as backward, and he wanted it to look modern. Let's not go back to the old ways.

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So the European Commission has . It's a victory for common sense. Well, I'm pretty sure about "It's" and "for" but not so certain about "victory" and "common sense".

It is a victory for those who want the decision to keep or get rid of miles and pints to lie with the British government, not the European Commission - although the commission has .

But shops will still have to display metric measurements even if they sell in pounds. So only half a victory perhaps.

But the government could now scrap the rule that makes them use metric (introduced in 2001 by the British government) and go back to pounds and ounces... as far as I can gather they wouldn't face opposition from the EU, at least not on the face of it.

Would you want them to do that? Would the supermarkets? Would the market traders?

And common sense? Certainly a victory of dogged British sentimental attachment to our system rather than one dreamed up by the pesky French. A priest Gabriel Mouton first put forward the ideas behind the metric system and it was adopted in the French revolution. It never caught on for clocks, but did for just about everything else.

But of course the history of weights and measures is a history of standardisation.

First of all, if you measure weights in stones (invented by the Babylonians) and I use the Greek Karob, we'll quarrel about how many aubergines I get in my shipment.

Worse, if we mean different things by "a yard", confusion reigns. Hence the "yardstick".

I love my pint, confuse my children when I talk of feet (although they still know "six foot" means "pretty tall"), get muddled when American authors describe characters in pounds (having to work out from context whether they're built like a bear or a butterfly). And living on the continent, they think in kilometres quite naturally.

But surely business would rather go metric?

And what about those Eurosceptics, who insist Britain's future and present and past lie with trading with the whole world, not just Europe, and rules should be based on what is good for business not political allegiance? Some things I have read suggest the USA, which made the metric system legal in 1866, will in two years' time get rid of imperial measurements, apart from miles. If so, we will stand alongside Burma and Liberia?

Quirky, loveable… but common sense?

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"The more they talk about unity, the more suspicious I am," said a colleague as we left one of the news conferences at the end of this EU foreign ministers' meeting.

It's true that they probably did protest too much about the need for unity after what amounted to a failure to reach a common approach on Kosovo. But this is exactly the sort of practical problem that should worry enthusiasts for a common EU foreign policy.

A crunch is coming over . If there is no agreement on the future of the place by 10 December, the UN deadline, it is likely that Kosovo will declare independence from Serbia. It's also likely the US will immediately recognise it.

Already one Serbian minister is threatening that troops will go in. Few think that is more than sabre-rattling, but such talk is worrying. Russia will back Serbia's refusal to recognise Kosovo. But what will the EU do?

France, Britain and Germany want to recognise it even without UN support. Others, led by Greece and Romania, are opposed.

Common sense might tell you who is going to win that argument, but it's not as easy as you might you think. One foreign minister of the Big Three described the Greek position as "a nightmare".

Those who want to get rid of vetoes in foreign affairs point to these cases. How daft, they say, that Greece can stop the EU's most powerful countries getting their way. But UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband believes it's more important to have a slower, legitimate policy that every single country backs, than a more efficient one that papers over the cracks.

But that is almost a philosophical debate. The problem for those who want the EU to have clout on the world stage is that it will look ridiculous if it cannot reach a common position, or reaches one that looks dithery and peppered with caveats.

But will the Big Three go it alone? The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, insists that after Iraq Europe must always be united on big foreign policy issues.

The Bulgarian foreign minister suggests a conference in Sofia could sort things out, though it's hard to see how.

But good news for one of the countries hoping to join the EU.

One male foreign minister from a founder member state nudged colleagues and suggested he would welcome much closer bilateral relations with .

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The Danes will have a referendum... but don't hold the front page.

The Danish foreign minister has indicated the Danish parliament and government want a referendum to get rid of one of , won in Edinburgh in 1992.

They want to opt into the justice policy set out in .

When I first heard this as a bit of gossip, I got quite excited: any popular vote on further European integration would in effect be a vote on the treaty itself.

But when I checked further, the minister had also set out a timetable: the referendum could be held in 2009, after the treaty has been voted through by parliament.

Apologies, by the way, for suggesting the Danish prime minister was a conservative. Many people wrote in to point out he's a liberal and sits alongside the British in the European Parliament, as part of the .

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EU foreign ministers in Viana do Castelo watch from balconies and a window as a local Portuguese band plays the European anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

A European flag flutters above them.

But neither the anthem nor the flag are mentioned in the new treaty, as they were in the constitution.

So are they the same document really, or completely different?

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I’m going abandon my objective approach above and say fervently that I wish all European Union meetings were held like this. Not just because it’s a sunny day in a pretty town, but because an incredibly informal walkabout by the foreign ministers gave such wonderful access.

So much better and simpler than standing around in a crush at the VIP entrance of building in Brussels.

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, played to the gallery, kissing a woman kitted out in Portuguese national dress, after shaking hands with the Portuguese foreign minister. The ministers watched from a balcony as the local music school band played the .

I asked a number of them whether the was just the constitution in drag, and got replies tailored to each minister's own national audience.

For instance, in Luxembourg on the old constitution, so Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told me: "That is a very British question. The most important thing is we have a treaty. Not the form but in the basis, the substance we are not far away from the constitutional treaty. All the important things for Britain and for the European Union are in this treaty."

In France they , so Mr Kouchner said: "No, one is shorter than the other, one is a constitution and the other is a treaty." So will they have another referendum? He laughs. "No, not now. We'll go through the parliament."

The Portuguese foreign minister said: "What a question!" But then, he’s chairing all these meetings and wants no trouble.

In Austria, the government was enthusiastic about the constitution, so Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik answered the same question in this way: "We have slimmed it down. It has undergone a diet. But for Austria it was important to keep the essence, to keep the institutional side of it intact, and also to keep the . This is the essence, and we were able to safeguard that."

In Poland, there were more concerns about the constitution, and the government won new concessions in the treaty, so Anna Fotyga said: "Absolutely not. We have gone much further and got a good outcome."

I asked her about the worries I mentioned before, about the Poles derailing the timetable. After making the point that the election date was not certain, she said: "There is no reason to think so. We are pretty united about the mandate we are able to discuss, and the government still has a mandate to act."

The British foreign secretary said: "The prime minister and I have both made this very, very clear - that the constitutional treaty has been abandoned... This is a treaty to make the European Union's institutions work better, and in line with all precedent it should be considered by Parliament.

"That is the right way of doing it, rather than referendum. Politicians of all parties are saying they want Parliament to play a bigger role in British national life, and here's an opportunity for Parliament to play that role."

When I asked if it was basically the same as the old constitution, he said, "It's completely different. This is not a new constitution for Europe, it's some institutional reforms."

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Could a Polish poll upset the timetable for the European reform treaty? While the campaign for a referendum in Britain gathers pace with the launch of a Poland’s political turmoil could upset the plans to have the new treaty signed off in October.

The Portuguese are pretty desperate for the presidents and prime ministers of the EU’s 27 countries to agree the deal then in Portugal rather than in December in Brussels. (No-one particularly wants a Treaty of Brussels.) The date for a Polish general election should be announced any day now and there’s a strong possibility it will be just a couple of days after the intended big meeting on 18 October, which will be Gordon Brown’s first as prime minister.

There’s perhaps a problem for any government signing up to a major international treaty just days before it might lose office, but that isn’t the real worry. The concern among governments here is that the , which is of a nationalist bent, will either make new demands to look tough or simply ask for the deal to be put off to the December summit in the Belgian capital.

I am at a in Portugal. It’s what’s known as an “informal” because originally these were intended as a chance for ministers to chew the fat in a relaxed location without an agenda. Now it just means no official decisions are taken.

There’s one other big difference: “informals” are held in the country holding the presidency. Time was when all major summits were also held in the nation states but that ended a couple of years ago. Now it’s only two summits a year and these informal meetings. All the rest are held in Brussels rather than at an impressive castle or rather less impressive exhibition centre.

The reason is obvious, that the EU wants to avoid giving the impression that it’s wasting money and paying for a junket. From a media point of view, it is certainly cheaper and much, much easier to operate from a home base than lug equipment half way across Europe and set up mobile studios and the like. The support staff from Brussels doubtless have an easier time of it as well, for similar reasons.

But I wonder if something is lost, at least from the view of those trying to promote the EU? I doubt the Portuguese people will be overly impressed by 27 foreign ministers and their staff descending on a seaside town in the north of the country. Certainly, driving from Oporto I wasn’t particularly endeared to the whole concept when I was forced out of the fast lane by police motor cyclists, lights flashing, ahead of a convoy of cars containing, presumably, some foreign minister, trailed by a minibus of support staff.

But it does make the point that the EU is made up of member states, whereas having all the meetings in Brussels makes it look like an organisation run from the centre.

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I have just learned that the European Commission is going to take action aimed at protecting one of the world's rarest big cats, the Iberian lynx, but the move may enrage locals in southern Spain.

The EU already gives a lot of money to protect the animal. This morning, I was looking at lynx cubs who were part of a breeding programme at the . I was watching through a video monitoring system. Outsiders are not allowed into the enclosures because of the risk of disease to the lynx.

There are 20 of them in the breeding programme, on the edge of the park, and only an estimated 150 left in the wild. They are very cute, their faces like an optical illusions that seems to morph between a domestic cat and a tiger.

The cubs are frolicking around and biting each other. But environmentalists say this already rare animal is under threat because of a road built by the .

The Villamanrique road was a simple forest track, but was upgraded to a fast tarmac road. Now the European Commission has decided to take the regional government ot the . The court is almost certain to rule that the road should be torn up. That will delight environmentalists but dismay many who live here.

Read my full report on the efforts to protect the Iberian lynx, and the associated problems created by EU-funded intensive farming, here.

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The prime minister is thinking about calling an early election in the autumn. But he has got one serious worry: that his opponents will wreck his plans by making hay backing a popular call for a referendum on the EU Reform Treaty.

No, not Gordon Brown. Or perhaps I mean, not just Gordon Brown.

Denmark's conservative leader, , has promised Angela Merkel that he will do his very best to avoid a referendum. They are both painfully aware that it could trigger a domino effect that might knock over Mr Brown by heating up the already pretty hot demands for such a vote in the UK.

After all, look at the impact the Danish No-vote on the Maastricht Treaty had on British domestic politics. It emboldened Conservative Eurosceptics and meant the treaty had a gruesome passage through Parliament that fatally undermined John Major's authority. So how difficult is it for the government in Denmark now?

The main opposition party, led by Neil Kinnock's daughter-in-law , is not calling for a referendum - not yet anyway. While she is opposed, others in her Social Democratic party argue it is too good an opportunity to miss. But the nationalist Danish People's Party, which votes with the government coalition, does want a referendum, and so do the socialists.

But the really critical point is the call for a referendum by , a charismatic and very popular politician who has just formed his own new centre party, New Alliance. This Muslim politician became hugely popular during the by calling on fellow members of the faith to support Danish democracy.

I am told the Danish prime minister wants to help Gordon Brown, but he wants to remain prime minister even more. He would also like to win an election, then hold a referendum on getting rid of the Danish Maastricht opt-outs, so they could join the euro. And we all know you can have too much of a good thing.

Thanks very much to my colleague Thomas Lauritzen from the Danish newspaper for advice on this piece.

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Dusk is falling and I am in a magical place. The sky seems huge over head. Mist covers the mountain in the distance. The uneven hillside I’m walking on is filled with the gentle music of cow bells, and the scent of wood smoke.

This is Transylvania, not far from one of the castles purporting to be Dracula's own. But no dark spirits are abroad tonight. In a rough pen made of thick branches there are about 20 cows, and they are being milked by hand by three men, with practiced assurance.

They are men who are out in all weathers. The one I talk to is wind-tanned with an engaging gap-toothed smile. He has a leather hat pulled tight on his head. He sits on a rough wooden stool, offering the animals gentle reassurance in a gruff voice, as the milk squirts into buckets.

The task finished and the frothy milk poured into urns, the men show me their wooden shelter in the middle of the rough hillside.

A simple fire made up of several stout sticks burns in one corner. In the middle of the hut, on the mud floor, stands a big aluminium urn with more milk in it. One of the men explains to me how he makes cheese and then puts it into a strange-shaped wooden trough standing by one wall, to squeeze out the moisture. He offers me cheese made three days ago. It's very fresh, sharp and crumbly.

He takes me outside, gesturing towards a wooden structure covered by a tarpaulin. Imagine a roughly-nailed-together large double bunk bed that has collapsed, so there is a gap just big enough for a man to crawl into. It’s where he sleeps. Why? To drive off the wolves and the bears, he says.

But how long can such farming methods survive, now that Romania has joined the European Union? Read more on Monday.

Mark's report from Romania will be the second in a series of three about the European Union’s role in environmental protection. The first was about a through protected marshland. The third report will look at Spain's worries about a shortage of water.

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I’m rather sad to be leaving Poland without properly investigating the latest political turmoil here. rang me to ask me to do a piece for next week, but I’ve got to move on to Romania. This means they will probably be reporting on it soon.

What’s happened? The governing has lost its coalition partners, and amid accusation and counter-accusation of corruption some very senior people have been arrested. Just before some of them were due to give evidence to an investigation into said corruption.

It’s a bit like Gordon Brown ordering the arrest of David Blunkett, Sir Richard Branson and Sir Robert Mark while Stella Rimington goes on the run. While I haven’t spoken to enough people to write about it properly, Polish colleagues find it all rather depressing: they think the politicians are only concerned with settling trivial old scores by using some of the less salubrious techniques of the old communist regime.

But they argue the country is doing well despite the politicians, and will continue to thrive. If you live in Poland or know about it, tell me what you think. Instead of further investigating this, I am off to Romania to look at what the has meant for the country since it joined the EU at the beginning of the year.

Mark's about a dispute over plans to build a motorway through protected marshland was the first of three on the European Union’s role in environmental protection. From Romania he will travel to Spain, to examine how officials intend to tackle a shortage of water.

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