Brief items for which there was no room in earlier issues
*** Euro: On a visit to Athens, Belgian Prime Minister Mr Verhofstadt said there "is no doubt" that the Feira summit will approve Greek admission to the euro area. During a Senate debate in France, former Finance Minister Jean Arthuis stated that "what is missing is a spokesman for the euro, a single interlocutor", and recalling that he had requested the creation of a Euro Council as early as 1995, when France agreed to Theo Waigel's proposal for a Stability and Growth Pact, he said the role of the Euro-11 had to be strengthened and proposed appointment of a "representative of the single currency" from within the group. In the United Kingdom, the The Institute of Directors has published a report which, after assessing the five economic "tests" for the pound's membership of the euro area set by Gordon Brown, concludes that there is nothing to suggest that the British economy is converging with that of its Euro-11 neighbours.
*** EU/Justice/Home Affairs/United Kingdom: At last week's Justice/Home Affairs Council, British Home Affairs Minister Jack Straw stated that "Schengen membership brings us real benefits", in particular because the police and other law enforcement bodies will have access to the Schengen Information System (it will be recalled that London has decided to apply some of the Schengen provisions). He also welcomed the signing, with his French counterpart Jean-Pierre Chevènement, of an agreement that will allow UK immigration services to conduct checks before Eurostar passengers board in France (the trains linking France and the United Kingdom going through the Channel Tunnel are increasingly being used for illegal entry, said Mr Straw).
*** EU/UN: Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, reports La Libre Belgique, during his visit to Rome, said that Belgium and Italy favour appointment of an EU permanent representative to the United Nations Security Council, and that he personally could easily imagine Javier Solana, CFSP High Representative, doing the job.
*** EU/French Presidency: Xavier de Villepin, Chair of the French Senate Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, said during a debate on the future French Presidency of the EU Council that "the point France will have to defend insistently" at the IGC is the reweighting of votes in the Council. He also expressed the personal hope that the French Presidency could "one way or another, join" the initiative suggested by Joschka Fischer (in the three-phase process he has developped, enhanced cooperation is the first stage, he said).
*** France/14 July: Agence Belga is reporting that Belgian Defence Minister André Flahaut has reacted positively to the invitation from his French counterpart for Belgian military forces to participate in the parade on the Champs Elysées on 14 July. Paris has invited seven EU countries -Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom- which belong to different European military organisations (e.g. Eurocorps, Euromarfor or WEAG) to participate symbolically in the parade marking the French national day. AFP is reporting that France has first considered inviting all the Member States to participate in the parade.
*** EU/United States/International Criminal Tribunal: Human Rights Watch has accused the US government of launching "an offensive to undermine the treaty establishing the International Criminal Tribunal", and states that the United States has thus "joined the ranks of Iraq, Yemen, Qatar, China and Israel in opposing the treaty". The human rights organisation particularly accuses Madeleine Albright of having written to her European Union colleagues to ask them to accept "substantial modifications" to the treaty, changes that would make it impossible for the new Court to prosecute nationals of non-member States, in the absence of an explicit agreement by their part or by the Security Council.
*** OECD: The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has raised growth projections for its 29 members and is now anticipating, in its six-monthly forecasts, average GDP growth of 4% in 2000 and 3.1% in 2001. Last November, it had forecast 2.9% and 2.6%. For the euro area, the OECD is now projecting expansion of 3.5% and 3.3%, whereas in November it had forecast growth of only 2.8% for both years.
*** France/Jacques Delors: The weekly Le Point is reporting that Lionel Jospin has appointed Jacques Delors to the Chair of the "Council on Employment, Earnings and Social Cohesion", in the hope of giving it "new dynamism".