EU leaders aim to put treaty in place by 1 December

The EU's new set of institutional rules may come into force in just over a month, ending a marathon stretch of treaty-making that took eight years, included a series of referendums and resulted in an ungainly text littered with footnotes, protocols and opt-outs.

"The Lisbon Treaty will enter into force doubtless as early as December 1," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after a summit of EU leaders on Friday (30 October).

The breakthrough came after member states managed to ag...