In their innermost souls most of them probably know that the institutional changes envisaged in the Lisbon treaty were, if anything, far too modest to give the EU even a modicum of the political clout it will need as the 21st century progresses.
But they were afraid to say so. Indeed, their treaty was expressly designed not to say so.
Their whole object was to present the narrowest possible front to Eurosceptic opposition, to smuggle barely adequate changes into law, in the hope that nobody would notice. (David Marquand )
