Will the crisis oblige the EU to refocus around a Franco-German core with a new treaty? Legal constraints, economic and financial requirements and geopolitical surprises that have occurred over the last two years seem to point in this direction. In the ilk of Wolfgang Schäuble, Jean-Dominique Giuliani, the Foundation's chairman, explains this in an editorial published on his site.

16 days to go: enrol for the conference "Women and Europe and the Citizens' Initiative" which will take place on 21st September at the European Parliament in Brussels. This conference organised by the Robert Schuman Foundation together with the European Commission, the Konstantinos Karamanlis Institute for Democracy and the Polish Robert Schuman Foundation is endeavouring to strengthen parity in Europe by employing the European Citizens' Initiative. A great number of important personalities will take part in the debate. The number of places is limited.

The outgoing President of the Republic, Toomas Hendrik, was re-elected to the Presidency of the Republic of Estonia on 29th August last during the first round of voting that took place in the Riigikogu, the only chamber in Pariament. Toomas Hendrik Ilves is the first president of the Republic of Estonia to be elected by Parliament since 1996, the year when the present system to appoint the head of State in Estonia was established.

The Greek debt is soaring. Finance Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, has had to refute the rumours. On 2nd August he announced that the public deficit will be revised upwards, with some sources forecasting 8.8% of the GDP, instead of the original 7.4%. Since 29th August Greece has been subject to another audit by the EU, the IMF and the ECB with regard to the release of the sixth instalment of the agreed loan; however auditors left the country on 2nd September and announced that they would come back in ten days time to continue their work.

On 29th August the "Economic and Monetary Affairs" Committee at the European Parliament debated the euro area's situation with the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, and Polish Minister, Jacek Rostowski. Mr Trichet defended the ECB's programme to buy back bonds; the bank's overall action against the crisis was lauded by MEPs. Mssrs Rehn and Rostowski stressed the need to adopt "the package of six" texts on economic governance.

The Council of the European Union decided on 2nd September to release further instalments in aid to Portugal and Ireland, totalling respectively 11.5 and 7.5 billion euros. This decision was taken after the positive results of an inquiry by the EU and the IMF which stress that the governments in both countries have launched the necessary reforms for the recovery of public accounts and of the financial sector and for improved competitiveness.

From 26th to 29th August High Representative Catherine Ashton travelled to Israel, Palestine and Jordan to support peace process negotiations. She called on the various institutional players to take this opportunity to come a settlement of the conflict. On 2nd-3rd September the Union's Foreign Ministers re-iterated their support to the negotiations without adopting an official position on the acknowledgement of Palestine in the absence of a resolution formally delivered by the UN. For their part MEPs of the international trade committee unanimously recommended Parliament's approval of the conclusion of an agreement between the EU and the Palestinian Authority to liberalise trade in agricultural and fishing products.

On 31st August the German government adopted the extension of the powers of the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) as decided by the European Summit on 21st July. The new powers enable the EFSF, created in 2010, to come to the aid of countries in distress, to purchase public debt on the secondary bond market and also to grant lines of credit and loans to States. The lower chamber of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, will debate the adoption of this text on 29th September; the debate promises to be a heated one.

Democracy, the rule of law and Europe have lost an unrelenting friend and patron. Dimitri Panitza, founding chairman of the Foundation for Free and Democratic Bulgaria and the Free School for Political Science of Bulgaria passed away this summer. To the very end he continued to work for his country's recovery. The Robert Schuman Foundation, which worked for a long time and very often, with him has lost a dear friend and addresses its most sincere condolences to his wife, Yvonne, who also shared his commitments.

Spanish MPs, who met in an extraordinary session on 30th August approved the proposal for constitutional reform designed to guarantee budgetary stability ie the famous "golden rule". In an extraordinary session of the lower chamber of Parliament on 2nd September Spanish MPs approved the inclusion of the "golden rule" on budgetary stability into the constitution by an overwhelming majority. This text includes the principle of a limit to the public deficit. The text now has to be approved by the Senate.

On 3rd August the Interministerial Committee for Economic Programming approved the final trajectory of the Lyon-Turin link on the Italian side, with notably the building of an international station in Suse. At the end of June preparatory work was started in Italy; with this new trajectory the first two conditions for the maintenance of the European subsidy have been fulfilled; with regard to the last condition, France and Italy have to sign an annex to the Turin Treaty before 21st September that details the calendar and division of the work load. The European Commission is putting forward the "Lyon-Turin" Transalpine railway as the central link of the Kyiv-Lisbon line. The infrastructure will lead to the "optimisation of the positive effects on economic growth and reduce negative effects on the environment." The corridor is planned as the "basic transport network" to facilitate the interconnection of freight and people in Europe.

Slovenian MPs appointed Ljubo Germic as the new leader of Parliament, 57 votes in favour, 24 against, in replacement of Pavel Gantar, whose party has quit the government coalition. Aged 57 Mr Germic belongs to the Liberal Democratic Party, LDS, the last partner in the social-democratic coalition led by Borut Pahor.

On 27th August, together with the former Heads of State of the Republic of Moldova, Prime Minister Vlad Filat attended a ceremony celebrating the 20th anniversary of independence of Moldova that ended 67 years of Soviet occupation.

During a meeting with political party leaders on 29th August, Russian President Dimitri Medvedev announced that the next general elections would take place on 4th December. The Russian Presidential election is planned for March 2012. He also outlined the new rules that will govern elections to the Douma (the lower chamber of Parliament) which include the extension of the MPs' mandates to five years (instead of four) and the obligation on the part of parties which are not yet represented in Parliament to collate 150,000 signatures (instead of the present 200,000).

According to an estimate published by Eurostat on 31st August the annual inflation rate in the euro area lay at 2.5% in August 2011. In July the rate also lay at 2.5%.

The Foundation for International Relations and External Action (FRIDE) published a study entitled "Is Poland still committed to the Eastern Neighbourhood?" on 29th August. It analyses the "Europeanisation" of Poland's eastern policy, a sign of its commitment to foreign policy priorities set by the EU. More specifically the author addresses Poland's attitude to Russia, Ukraine and Moldova.

Jean-Paul Betbèze, a member of the Robert Schuman Foundation's Scientific Committee and the Economic Analysis Council, together with Jean-Dominique Giuliani, Chairman of the Robert Schuman Foundation have published "Les 100 mots d'Europe" with Presses Universitaires de France. The book enables readers to gather a clear, rapid overview of European terms.

Until 25th September the international "George Enescu" festival is taking place in Bucharest which will resound to baroque music, symphonies by Mozart and Liszt and concertos by Brahms. The festival takes place very two years in the Romanian capital.