Brussels, 25/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - The EU is looking at ways to facilitate procedures for adopting children from Haiti. On Monday 25 January, the new head of European diplomacy, Catherine Ashton, stated that they needed to protect children wherever they were and would look at ways of ensuring what is best for them. Nonetheless, the Spanish minister for justice, Francisco Caamaño, indicated on Friday 22 January, that several member states wanted to facilitate adoption procedures and stated: “We will do everything we can to make coordination effective as soon as possible”. Six hundred Haitian children for whom the procedure was launched before the earthquake on 12 January, have arrived in the Netherlands. A first group of 33 children out of the 276 in possession of adoption decisions, also arrived in Paris. Germany is expected to follow suite. Commissioner Jacques Barrot explained: “A European framework is required to tackle this problem. It would be in our interests to work with UNICEF”. (B.C./transl.fl)