Brief items for which space was lacking in earlier editions
*** EU/Romania: During his recent visit to Romania, President Prodi called for navigation on the Danube, still hindered by the debris of bridges destroyed during the Kosovo war, to be re-established at the earliest opportunity: "I have asked the Danube Commission to present a technical project analysing all the possibilities of clearing the river and this report will be submitted very shortly", he announced. Further, Prime Minister Isarescu has set up, as requested by the European Commission, a single body in Romania with responsibility for needy children. Romania also put out a new postage stamp on 13 January showing the blue and gold EU flag alongside the Romanian flag.
*** EU/Oil slick: European sources reported last week that the Commission had asked Malta to provide it with information on five oil tankers operating under the Maltese flag, of the same type as the Erika, which recently caused a disastrous oil spill off the French coast. The tankers were built in the mid-1970s.
*** EU/Morocco/Fisheries: Morocco's Agriculture Minister Jésus Posada said on 13 January, at the inauguration of Grüne Woche in Berlin, that the recent visit by European Commissioner for Fisheries Franz Fischler had served to break the deadlock on the EU/Morocco fisheries agreement. Mr Posada, after meeting Mr Fischler in Berlin, said there was "a large enough measure of agreement between the European Commission's position and ours" and hoped the Commissioner's meeting with Morocco's Deputy Fisheries Minister, on 17 January in Brussels, would be "satisfactory".
*** EMU/Denmark: According to a poll published last Friday by Boersen, 37.2% of Danes are opposed to Denmark's joining the euro area (compared to 34.6% only a week earlier) and 45.3% (as against 47.5%) are in favour. According to the same poll, 51.1% of Danes report that they are not informed enough to be able to express their views in a referendum on their country's joining the euro area (it will be recalled that Prime Minister Rasmussen has said such a consultation would be held after September of this year and before mid-March 2002).
*** EU/Monetary affairs: The Bank of England last week raised its leading interest rates 0.25 points to 5.75%. This is the third increase in British rates in five months; during the summer of 1999, rates in the UK were at their lowest level in 22 years, at 5%. The Bank's decision was taken because of an acceleration of growth in the economy and an increase in housing prices.
*** EP/Yugoslavia: The European Parliament Delegation for Relations with South East Europe, chaired by German Christian Democrat Doris Pack, expressed shock in a press release over the sentencing of Flora Brovine, a doctor from Kosovo, to 12 years imprisonment by a court in Nis (Serbia), and called for the doctor's immediate release.
*** Yugoslavia/Europe/United States: In a declaration approved by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Italy, and read last week by the US State Department spokesman, Washington and these European countries praise the agreement reached on 10 January by elements of the Serb opposition on adoption of a "unified approach". "Change will come" to Serbia, states the declaration, which also highlights these countries' will to help this country overcome its isolation and take up its rightful role in the region.
*** EU/Electronic commerce: According to the results of research conducted for the European Commission by the German firm Stiftung Warentest, electronic commerce is markedly more costly and slower in Italy than in other European Union countries. The most efficient country is the United Kingdom, followed by Spain, France, Belgium and Germany.
*** EU/Italy: The EU High Representative for the CFSP, Javier Solana, was presented with the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by Italy's Ambassador to NATO, Amedeo De Franchis, at a ceremony attended by Commission President Romano Prodi, European Commissioner Mario Monti and NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Guido Venturoni. In a message, Italian President Ciampi stressed Javier Solana's achievements as Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance and the role he is destined to play in the European Union and praised his "profound pro-European convictions" and his "creative and determined approach" to the "now impossible objective of postponing a genuine foreign and security policy for the Union".