European Union leaders were making progress on Thursday night towards concluding a long-awaited treaty on institutional reform in spite of reservations from Poland and Italy.

Q&A: What does the treaty mean for Europe’s future?

Ask Hugo Brady, from the Centre for European Reform

Luís Amado, the foreign minister of Portugal, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said the main outstanding issue was Poland’s demand that the treaty should include a provision safeguarding the right of member-states to delay decisions passed by a majority of their EU partners for a reasonable length of time.