Brussels, 07/04/2000 (Agence Europe) - As we have already indicated, the president of the EU Council, Jaime Gama, cannot be in Strasbourg all day Wednesday and he will therefore make his statements on Tuesday afternoon on the Lisbon Summit (on which the Parliament will adopt a resolution), and on the EU-Africa Summit (see EUROPE of 6 April, pages 3 and 4). In addition, a declaration by Mr Gama on the evaluation of the embargo against Iraq was added to the agenda for Tuesday afternoon.
Debates on the IGC and Turkey, however, will not be held on Wednesday. As far as the Dimitrakopoulos Report on the Intergovernmental Conference and the institutional reform is concerned, the resolution will be voted on Thursday. Some 200 amendments were presented, including 115 by the EPP group (one, in particular, calls for there to be at least one Commissioner per Member State in future, while the report favours a Commission of 20 Commissioners plus the president from 2010). The spokesman for the Europe of Democracies and Diversities Group announced to the press several "Eurosceptic" amendments including the vote that will allow evaluation, it said, of the force of the "Eurosceptics" within the Parliament. Regarding Turkey, the Council and the Commission will make their statement on Wednesday after taking part at the EU/Turkey Association Council on Tuesday in Luxembourg (see other article on page 7).
With regard to the other major debate of this session, discharge for execution of the 1998 budget (Tuesday morning), a spokesman for the EPP Group pointed out that the group will be deciding in Strasbourg, at the beginning of next week, whether or not to present amendments calling on the Parliament to defer discharge for execution of its own budget, as it will be doing for the European Commission budget. The Greens are in favour of postponement, but the amendments of the groups will no doubt be declared inadmissible as only the Committee on Budgetary Control is authorised to submit amendments concerning discharge.
Regarding the Bowe Report on the dissemination of GMOs into the environment (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.9), the Greens Group is organising two press conferences on this subject, one with the Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, the other with an American lawyer for the alliance on bio-integrity.
Emergency debates on Thursday afternoon will cover the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (the conference examining the NPT will be opening in New York this month), Chechnya (see other page on the subject of the vote by the Council of Europe Assembly), human rights in the world, the World Education Forum and Taiwan (following recent elections).
Other changes to the agenda are: - the bringing forward from Tuesday to Monday of the Lannoye Report on sweeteners and the Staes Report on official food inspections; - the addition, to the Friday morning session, of two oral questions on night flights and noise pollution and forestry issues following the storms in December (the Greens, who put the questions, are not pleased with seeing them dealt with on a Friday, before a Chamber that is probably half empty. They recalled that they had proposed to abolish Friday morning sittings, and announce they will request the noting of a quorum - 210 MEPs - which is practically never reached)
The European Commission's communication on Tuesday afternoon, on the decisions taken that same day, will be made by Chris Patten and will concern the external relations "package".