European Diary:After weeks of contentious treaty negotiations, the EU press corps flew to Portugal at the weekend hoping for some rest and recuperation.
The traditional welcome to the media trip at the start of a country's EU presidency is a time to build contacts with local diplomats and politicians and get a feel for the priorities of a presidency.
Liquid lunches, dinners and concerts are all part of a programme designed to generate goodwill rather than hard news. But with the twins Jaroslav and Lech Kaczynski running Poland, controversy is never far away.
Barely had our plane touched down in Lisbon before news began filtering through that Polish prime minister Jaroslav Kaczynski was questioning the details of a deal struck at last week's EU summit on the proposed voting system in the new EU reform treaty. "We have to finally resolve this issue at the intergovernmental conference," said Kaczynski, who believes Warsaw had negotiated in the talks a so-called "Ioannina Compromise" to boost its voting weight.
Under this mechanism a group of states that have almost enough votes to block an EU decision could stall it for some two years.
However, European officials say the system agreed in late-night talks between Jaroslav's brother Lech and other EU leaders can delay a council decision for just four months.
In Lisbon the latest Polish concerns confirmed the fears of Portuguese diplomats that the intergovernmental conference it plans to convene on July 23rd in Brussels to complete the technical drafting of the "reform treaty" will be a tricky exercise.
"A great many problems will arise but we are ready to come to terms with them . . . this is a misunderstanding that needs to be clarified," Portuguese prime minister José Sócrates told journalists at a reception at his lavish official residence when asked about the Polish request. Laying out the priorities for the EU presidency, Sócrates said Portugal would present the draft text of the "reform treaty" in three weeks. This could be negotiated and agreed by EU leaders at a summit in Lisbon in the autumn, he added.
Sócrates, who came to power in Portugal in March 2005 after winning a landslide election, is not shy about his pro-European stance.
"I was born in 1957, the same year the EU was founded . . . it is my responsibility to help Europe solve its crisis," he says.
Agreeing the "reform treaty"- which may become the Treaty of Lisbon if Sócrates can keep the Polish twins happy - will be Portugal's main goal of its presidency. But other thorny issues will also require deft handling.
Turkey's 40-year bid to join the union could cause fireworks later this year if France's energetic new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, continues to demand a debate on enlargement policy at a December summit. Sarkozy wants to block further accession talks with Turkey, a predominantly Muslim state that he feels does not belong within the union.
A supporter of enlargement, Sócrates is urging the EU to be loyal to Turkey and not go back on its commitment to open accession negotiations.
"The credibility of the EU is at stake . . . and our relationship with the Islamic and the Muslim world," said Sócrates, who nevertheless will want to avoid squaring off against Sarkozy during the Portuguese presidency.
Russia also promises to test Portugal's diplomatic skills during its presidency. Relations between Moscow and the EU plummeted to new lows at a summit in May when Russian president Vladimir Putin and German chancellor Angela Merkel traded barbed comments about human rights. But Sócrates, a fan of Russian authors Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, signalled that he wanted to achieve a detente between the two blocs.
Asked by a Lithuanian journalist whether Portugal would continue to take a pushy stance with Moscow, Sócrates said this would be irresponsible and he would not be "the guy to increase tensions".
Diplomatic relations should not be based on moral judgments on your partner, added Sócrates, who recently visited Russia and is one of the few EU leaders to have enjoyed a sleepover at the Kremlin.
But all this talk of "soft power" and detente in relation to EU-Russia relations did not impress the journalists from states in central Europe. And with an EU-Russia summit scheduled for October, internal EU tensions on how to handle Putin could re-emerge.
Sócrates, who is in the midst of a radical reform agenda at home in Portugal, will also be tested over his handling of a proposed EU-Africa summit in December. Most member states support Lisbon's decision to use its presidency to re-engage with Africa, but Britain is sure to complain if Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is invited.
Sócrates admitted on Saturday that he could end up attending the summit, arguing that Europe could not hold its future ties with Africa hostage to a "bilateral problem" with Mugabe.
But as recent disputes between Germany and Poland have proven, personalities and events can put paid to the best-laid plans of politicians.