Brussels, 31/08/2000 (Agence Europe) - On 30th August, the French Presidency issued the following declaration (unofficial translation) on behalf of the European Union:
"The European Union welcomes the twentieth anniversary of the Gdansk agreements which marked, on 31 August 1980, the first acknowledgement by a Soviet bloc country of a free trade union. The event was immediately seen in the East, as in the West, as a great hope for freedom and democracy. It was the start of a process which,...