Brussels, 14/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - Permanent President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy has defended his decision to use an official Council car to set off on holiday with nine members of his family. The EUobserver revealed on Thursday 14 October that Van Rompuy, his wife, children and some of his grandchildren were driven, by his chauffeur, from Brussels to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris where they flew off to their holiday destination. According to Van Rompuy's spokesman, the official car was used for security reasons. “It was security measures that were imposed by the Council security service. The president did not ask for it,” Dirk de Backer told AFP. The Council security service made the decision because of the “potential dangers” that a president of the European Council runs, the spokesman added.
Economic governance. Van Rompuy opened the major annual conference of Friends of Europe on the State of Europe in Brussels on Thursday morning. He argued forcefully for European economic governance and coordination, supervision and sanction mechanisms to increase convergence of member states' budgetary and macro-economic policies and to ensure compliance with the Stability Pact. The taskforce will meet “for the last time” next week. The aim is still to adopt the final report at the European Council on 28-29 October, Van Rompuy said. Once the new supervision mechanism has been agreed, it will be “high time to take positive measures”, for example, to complete the internal market and to increase investment in education and research, he added.
The president of the Council was due to travel to Berlin on Thursday evening for a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. (H.B)