Treaty reform was understandably the main issue of the week in the European Parliament as Portuguese prime minister José Socrates also outlined his plans for the Portuguese presidency.
Much was made of the parliament's decision to adopt a report that gives the go-ahead to the intergovernmental conference on the reform treaty later this month. However, a number of reservations expressed in the report and by MEPs hint that further obstacles could lie ahead in the drafting of a new treaty.
The report was passed on Wednesday, but not before MEPs raised concerns about the number of exemptions granted to some states and the loss of aspects of the failed constitution.
The author of the report, German socialist Jo Leinen, cautioned against going back on anything that was already agreed.
A number of MEPs raised the issue of Britain's opt-out on the charter of fundamental rights, saying parliament could not tolerate a system of first and second-class membership.
One of the more memorable takes on the situation during the debate came from British MEP Richard Corbett, a spokesman for the socialist group, when he addressed claims that the new treaty would salvage 90 per cent of the draft constitution.
"Recent scientific research demonstrated that human beings and mice are genetically 90 per cent identical. But the 10 per cent difference is rather important."
The 10 per cent difference in the mandate, he said, was also "rather important". However, he conceded that the "crucial point" was that the compromises would make it easier to ratify.
At a press conference following the vote, Mr Socrates and José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, were notably cautious in their approach to questions on how the treaty should be ratified.
Mr Socrates said they should not discuss what way the treaty would be ratified "until we know exactly what we are ratifying".
Mr Barroso deflected any comparisons with the previous constitution by saying the new treaty was clearly an improvement on the current situation.
Promising a "stronger Europe for a better world", Mr Socrates had earlier stressed to parliament the need to rejuvenate the Lisbon Strategy and to give the EU a stronger presence on the world stage. In particular, he looked forward to the second EU-Africa summit in December, saying that "nothing can justify" not having any high-level meeting since the 2000 summit in Cairo.
On Tuesday, the commissioner for internal markets, Charlie McCreevy, was in Strasbourg to announce the launch of the Solvency II regime, which aims to overhaul 30-year-old rules governing the supervision of insurers.
Solvency II will harmonise regulations across the EU and make changes to the amount of capital that insurance companies have to set aside to cover for liability. It is hoped that rules will be operational by 2012.