Tony Barber: It is striking that the Czech constitutional court announced its approval of the European Union's Lisbon treaty just as the prospect of another Russian gas import crisis began to loom on the EU's horizon. For even though the news from Prague is welcome, the Lisbon treaty will, in and of itself, do very little to help the EU address its most serious foreign and economic policy problems.

The sheer sense of relief at adopting a new EU treaty - it's taken eight years, required two different texts, gone through three failed referendums and caused endless trouble in countries such as the Czech Republic, Ireland and the UK - risks fostering the delusion that everything will be better once Lisbon is in force. But this is to fall into the trap of assuming that process can substitute for substance.