Presiding over next week's summit will be the Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende.

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Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has said the Netherlands will not vote again.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Treaty woes thwart EU ambitions

This time early runners for the president's position include a British former prime minister, Tony Blair, and the Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende.

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The new centre-right government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, which came to power last May, says it wants to find a "tough but fair solution".

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"You cannot get over the French and Dutch problems while Chirac and Balkenende are still in government, " says the leader of the Liberal group in the European Parliament, Graham Watson.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | Treaty woes thwart EU ambitions

The Netherlands has been run by a caretaker government since February when a coalition led by the CDA's former leader, Jan Peter Balkenende, collapsed after a row over military involvement in Afghanistan.

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Almost comically, a current favourite is the Belgian prime minister of less than a year's standing, the unknown Herman Van Rompuy, who seems not yet to have acquired as many critics as his longer-serving Dutch and Luxembourgeois counterparts, Jan Peter Balkenende and Jean-Claude Juncker.

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