EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - British prime minister Tony Blair walked into the EU summit on Thursday (21 June) saying he must see "significant changes" in the draft EU treaty if there is to be any deal. The Polish president said nothing, amid speculation on the kind of compromise package Warsaw might accept.
"This is going to be a very tough negotiation. We've set out four areas on which we need to see significant change. We have to see that change," Mr Blair said. "Of course we want to see Europe working effectively, but on the four areas we've set out, we need to be satisfied."
"We want a treaty but it has to be the right one," his foreign minister, Margaret Beckett, said.
The British demands are to weaken the mandate of a future EU "foreign minister;" to not give the Charter of Fundamental Rights legal force; to not give away the national veto on justice matters and to not give the "EU" a legal personality.
Speaking earlier at a socialist party congress in Brussels, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said "I've received a declaration from Tony Blair. It's a preparation for the British position at the council. I hope ...   more »

By Nick Pisa in Rome
An archaeologist has sparked a Da Vinci Code-style hunt for the Holy Grail after claiming ancient records show it is buried under a 6th century church in Rome.   
Dan Brown's novel said the Holy Grail was in Scotland 
The cup - said to have been used by Christ at the Last Supper - is the focus of countless legends and has been sought for centuries.
Alfredo Barbagallo, an Italian archaeologist, claims that it is buried in a chapel-like room underneath the Basilica of San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura, one of the seven churches which Christian pilgrims used to visit when they came to Rome.
Mr Barbagallo based his claim on two years spent studying mediaeval iconography inside the basilica and a description of a particular chamber, in a guide to the catacombs written in 1938 by a Capuchin friar named Giuseppe Da Bra.
The friar describes a room of about 20 square metres with a vaulted roof ceiling. "In the corner of a wall-seat there can be seen a terracotta funnel whose lower part opens out over the face of a skeleton," he wrote.
Da Bra then explains that giving liquid refreshment (refrigerium) to ...   more »