Brussels, 13/01/2000 (Agence Europe) - At the request of the EPP/ED Group, the Conference of Presidents of the Political Groups has struck off from the agenda of next week's plenary session in Strasbourg President Prodi's Statement on the European Commission's strategic goals for the next five years. This Statement was initially scheduled for Wednesday (see EUROPE of 12 January, p.9). The EPP/ED Group, with the backing of the ELDR Group, was calling for a Statement together with a written document. EUROPE has reason to believe that President Prodi informed the EP that such a document could not be made available in time for the session. Whence the decision to adjourn it to the February session, which met opposition from the PES Group.
Here are the other changes to the agenda adopted by the Conference of Presidents, while waiting for it to be definitively set by plenary, Monday evening in Strasbourg.
Tuesday: the Commission will make two statements (from 15.00 hrs.) on (1) the oil slick, and (2) the storms in Europe. These statements will be followed by a debate. The half-hour reserved between 17.00 and 17.30hrs. to the Commission's communication on decisions taken at its weekly meeting in Strasbourg will, notably, be devoted to Commissioner David Byrne's presentation of the White Paper on food safety. The Bourlanges Report (French, EPP) on budgetary revenue for the year 2000, that the Committee on the Budgets is to adopt Monday evening, will be examined late afternoon.
Wednesday: the Portuguese Presidency has been invited to discuss the situation in Angola in the framework of the presentation of its half-year programme. Instead of the statement on the strategic goals of the Commission, the Conference of Presidents has included two oral questions to the Commission and Council on the agenda on capital-gains tax and the model of the Tobin tax. All the Groups came down in favour of this request by the GUE/NGL Group, except for the EPP and ELDR.
Thursday: the Cunha Report (Portuguese, EPP) on the results of the multi-annual guidance programme for the fishing fleets (1997), initially scheduled for Friday, comes at the top of Thursday's agenda. Other than human rights, the debate on topical issues will concern Chechnya, the Ivory Coast, the Moluccas and Venezuela.
European Commission was ready to present its five-year programme next week
The Commission has taken note of the EP decision to postpone to the February plenary session (18 February), presentation by Romano Prodi of the programme for the next 5 years, while emphasising that it was ready to do so next week, as initially planned. Wednesday, the Commission had an in-depth debate and drew up its "2000-2004 political priorities" as the paper is called, and whose nature is not to be confused with that of the annual programme. The latter comprises a list of projects and initiatives, with a detailed timetable, which is not the case for the political priorities. The Commission intends placing at Parliament's disposal both the draft speech of President Prodi and the basic document before the day of the debate, while considering that the nature of the speech and the document does not lend itself to being presented several days beforehand. As for the dates, the Commission will of course comply with the EP's decisions, which is the master of the agenda.