European Union leaders fly to Lisbon on Thursday to sign a treaty that most describe as essential to modernise the bloc's institutions after its enlargement in May 2004 from 15 countries to 27.

Yet according to a report by one of Europe's leading academic experts on the EU, the main institutions - the council of ministers, European Commission, European parliament and European Court of Justice - are functioning as well as ever and the much-predicted gridlock has not happened.