Brief items for which space was lacking in earlier editions
*** EU/Defence: Belgian Defence Minister André Flahaut told journalists, at the end of the informal meeting of the defence ministers of the Fifteen, at the Chateau d'Ecouen last week, that according to him, among Member States (except possibly for the Netherlands), there was no reluctance to the holding, in future, of formal meetings between EU defence ministers.
*** Euro: The German weekly Die Zeit states that, the concerted intervention of Friday 22 September, in favour of the euro, amounted to 6 billion euro, and that the operation followed two teleconferences, Thursday and Friday, between the six members of the ECB directorate and the governors of the central banks of the euro zone. In addition, the Iraqi Government has decided no longer to use dollars in its commercial transactions abroad: "the dollar is the currency of an enemy country, that must be abandoned in favour of her currencies, including the euro", said Iraqi Finance Minister Mr. Azzaoui.
*** EU/Turkey: At a meeting in Tanceli last week with prosecutors, governors, police, human rights activists and trade unionists, Turkish Minister Rustu Kazim Yucelen, responsible for human rights, said that, in Turkey "there will be no more human rights abuses by the end of 2001". I addition, Human Rights Watch has published a report calling on the EU to draw up a detailed plan setting out "measurable" benchmarks regarding human rights that Turkey should meet to be able to join the Union: this is in Ankara's interest, as it will then see that the "goalposts will not be moving perpetually out of reach", says the organisation. Finally, a delegation of the Fazilet Party (main opposition party in Turkey) headed by its leader Recai Kutan had talks in Brussels last week with, among others, European MEPs and officials.
*** EP/United Kingdom: British (pro-European) Conservative Bill Newton Dunn MEP reacted strongly to the suspension from the Tories' delegation in the European Parliament for having, according to the delegation's head, Edward McMillan-Scott, regularly voted against the line of the British Conservative Party (McMillan-Scott accused him of having voted thirteen times in one day with Labour and the Liberal-Democrats). Mr. Newton Dunn was angered by this accusation and, considering that his party was in the hands of an "intolerant right-wing faction", said that in fact disciplinary action had been taken against him because he had "torn a strip off" Francis Maude, Shadow Foreign Secretary, at a meeting in Brussels last week with Conservative Euro-MPs.
*** EP/political groups/radicals: the Euro-MP on the Bonino List, Olivier Dupuis, said that the Corbett Report on political groups in the European Parliament adopted by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs had not put an end to the discriminations tat non-aligned MEPs suffered from, even though it does recognise "certain rights of an administrative nature" for the latter. Mr. Dupuis announced that he would be tabling an amendments to the Corbett Report in plenary, calling on the European Parliament to create a "Joint Group on the same footing as the others" (which, according to him, is the only way to enable all members to fully exercise their rights). This is all the ore necessary if account is taken of the "complexity of a European political system which is still, to a great extent, the addition of fifteen national political systems", says the MEP.
*** EP/pensions: Michl Ebner, MEP for South Tyrol (who sits with the EPP), has written to the European Commission asking it to make concrete proposals (or at least analyse their feasibility) in view of gradually achieving a common pensions policy within the European Union. According to him, such an initiative would be appropriate, at the very time when the majority of Member States are considering reforms regarding pensions.
*** EP/regional products: At a meeting of the EPP Group, Carlo Fatuzzo MEP (Partito dei Pensionati) questioned Commissioner David Byrne on the fate of Italian regional products, like "gorgonzola" or "mozzarella" that do not comply with European standards of consumer protection. In a press release, Mr. Fatuzzo states that the Commissioner had assured him that he would be proposing exemptions for this type of product and had said that, on a recent trip to Italy, he had particularly appreciated Colannato bacon.
*** EU/federalists/Commission: The UEF - European Group, which brings together civil servants of European Institutions members of the Union of European Federalists (UEF), elected Jacques Santer as new chairman. On 25 September, the group had talks with Commissioner Michel Barnier, responsible for institutional reform, and in the presence of Fernand Herman, on the prospects of the Intergovernmental Conference.