In Brussels, heads of state and government leaders from the 27 member states of the European Union have been meeting for the beginning of a two-day summit.

One of the topics they are discussing is the question of who will succeed the current EU president, José Manuel Barroso. Mr Barroso has many supporters within the EU. They include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. However, there has been much criticism of his performance by the European Parliament, which says he has shown too little initiative during his term in office.

The EU leaders also discussed the global financial crisis and agreed that reforms of the supervision of the financial system were needed. A special supervisory board is to be set up, to sound the alarm if a bank encounters such great problems that it threatens the European financial system.

The leaders could not agree on how they can help the Irish government with an upcoming second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Irish voters have already rejected the treaty once. The EU leaders want to prevent that happening a second time.

The Lisbon Treaty, which has not yet been ratified by all EU members, is intended to change the ways in which the EU works.