As I watched the European Union’s leaders sign the Lisbon reform treaty on Thursday, my mind wandered back to that pleasant autumn day in Rome in October 2004 when many of these same leaders signed the constitutional treaty that was the present document’s ill-fated predecessor.

Italy’s prime minister at that time was Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media magnate. He had fought tooth and nail to make sure Rome was the city in which the constitutional treaty was signed. In fact, some said  this had been the only goal that he really felt passionate about when Italy held the EU presidency from July to December 2003.

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Congratulations to Nicolas Sarkozy! Although nothing’s official yet, it looks pretty certain that the French president’s fellow European leaders have signed up for his pet project of a "wise men’s committee" to make proposals about what the European Union should look like, and what it should be doing, 20 to 30 years from now. Formal approval for the project is expected at an EU summit in December.

It would be easy to deride the committee, assuming it gets the green light, as yet another case of a dozen European paperclips in search of a document. But the mood in Brussels is rather upbeat at the moment, following the deal on the EU’s institutional reform treaty in Lisbon. So let’s ask ourselves the most fascinating question of all. Who will serve on Sarkozy’s committee?

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