ICE - special | All stories

Countries across the region have been reviewing their security procedures in the wake of the Madrid attacks, and some, which don't have specific anti-terrorism laws, are mulling the introduction of new legislation. Among them is the Czech Republic, which could see legal changes introduced within Months.

European Union leaders meeting in Brussels have revived the drive to agree on a constitution. They've set themselves a mid-June deadline to broker a deal. The deal breaker for the EU constitution is voting rights. Spain and Poland were fighting to hold on to a voting system that gave both countries 27 votes each in the future enlarged European Council of Ministers - only two less than the most populous states, including Germany which has a population double their size. But following a visit to Warsaw last week by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder,

World Bank head James Wolfensohn was in the Slovene capital, Ljubljana, this last week to mark Slovenia's upgrade from borrower to donor country within the World Bank. It's the first former communist country to be given this status and it's being hailed an important milestone for Slovenia's economy.

EU leaders met in Brussels this week and decided on a range of security measures including appointing a counter-terrorism co-ordinator, strengthening border controls, sharing data and setting a deadline for implementing anti-terror legislation already agreed, like the common European arrest warrant. In fact this was an EU summit of co-operation - in total contrast with the previous one in December last year, which saw Europe, divided over voting rights in the new constitution. Gyorgi Tocsis is correspondent for the Hungarian weekly magazine HVG

Bosnia-Herzegovina Prime Minister Adnan Terzic has been holding talks with his Slovene counterpart, Anton Rop, in Ljubljana this week. Economic ties between the two former Yugoslav Republics are said to be good, but politically they still have some issues to resolve.

Poland is not the only country in the region with troops in Iraq. The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia also have forces deployed there. So will fear of terror attacks change their commitment to US led coalition in Iraq? Kerry Skyring put the question to Sebestyen Gorka in Budapest, an analyst for Janes Terrorism and Security Monitor.

The general feeling at the Bratislava conference was that the European Union should enlarge further east. But some ask is there any point extending the bloc again if enthusiasm for the current enlargement is already waning within the EU itself? Rob Cameron, put the question to Alexander Vondra, a former Czech ambassador to the US.

The fall out from the deadly terrorist attacks in Madrid over a week ago continues. Poland, one of the United States staunchest allies says it may pull its troops out earlier than planned and now its President Alexander Kwasniewski says his country was misled about the reasons for going to war in Iraq - Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Michael Kubicki has been gauging the public mood after the Madrid bombings.

Miklos Haraszti, a former Hungarian dissident and writer, has been appointed Median Envoy to the Vienna based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - Europe's largest security organisation. Haraszti helped found the Hungarian Democratic Opposition Movement in 1976, and edited an underground periodical in the 1980s. He also served as a member of parliament in the early 1990s, and wrote several books - some of which were published in the West but blacklisted at home until the fall of communism. Sándor Laczkó of Radio Budapest asked

Experts and human rights advocates have been gathering in Slovakia this week to consider Europe's future - and what the continent's next objective might be, after the current wave of enlargement ends. The 'Towards a wider Europe' conference has been talking about what will happen with countries which border the EU after it enlarges - such as those from the Balkans or from around the Black Sea area. The issue of security has been high on the agenda...