Declaration sherpas starting to show

Signs of life in the office of Margot Wallström, European commissioner for communications and institutional relations. Her new chief of staff, Christian Leffler, has been chosen to be one of the two Commission officials liaising with the German presidency on the Berlin declaration to mark the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. The main point of contact will be João Vale de Almeida, the chief of staff to Commission President José Manuel Barroso. Although talks on the declaration start this week, member states have been slow to appoint their sherpas to handle the negotiations, which are supposed to develop into talks on revising the constitution. Polish President Lech Kaczyn´ski has appointed Marek Cichocki, his EU affairs adviser, as the main sherpa, with assistance from the state secretary for European integration in the foreign ministry, Ewa Os´niecka-Tamecka.
Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has appointed Nicola Clase, his foreign affairs adviser, as its main sherpa while Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has appointed diplomatic adviser Chris Hoornaert and Xavier Demoulin, director of European affairs at the foreign ministry. Newly elected European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering is expected to appoint his head of cabinet, Klaus Welle, in discussions with Berlin. The big question is who the French government will appoint, given that the country could completely change its position when the winner of the French president contest is known in May, depending on whether it is Nicolas Sarkozy for the right, who favours a mini-treaty to avoid a second referendum, or Socialist candidate Ségolène Royal who wants a more social Europe and has pledged to call another referendum.