EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The US State Department has said that President Barack Obama's decision not to come to an EU summit in Madrid in May is partly due to confusion arising from the Lisbon Treaty.
State department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told press in Washington on Tuesday (2 February) that the treaty has made it unclear who the US leader should meet and when.
"Up until recently, they [summits] would occur on six-month intervals, as I recall, with one meeting in Europe and one meeting here. And that was part of – the foundation of that was the rotating presidency within the EU. Now you have a new structure regarding not only the rotating EU presidency, you've got an EU Council president, you've got a European Commission president," he said.
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