Brief items for which space was lacking in earlier editions
*** EU/enlargement/United Kingdom: Foreign Secretary Robin Cook welcomed the strategy set out by the European Commission on Wednesday for the EU's enlargement process, and, recalling that in Warsaw Tony Blair had hoped for a "breakthrough" in negotiations under the Swedish Presidency, said: "These Commission proposals open the way to achieving this. The Commission has provided a lead. Member States and candidate countries need to show similar ambition".
*** EP/Czech Republic: the Chair of the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Committee, Christa Radzio-Plath, expressed her concern at the new Czech Central Bank law, expected to be adopted by the Czech Parliament soon despite the veto of President Vaclav Havel. Ms. Randzio-Plath fears that the new law (widely disputed and which led to the resignation, on 31 October, of the Governor of the Central Bank, Josef Tosovsky) "undermines the operational independence of the Czech Central Bank", which she says, would be in contradiction with the Czech Republic's aspiration to join EMU.
*** EP/fraud: the Democratici di sinistra MEP¸ Gianni Pittella welcomed the decision of the Italian Finance Minister, Ottaviano del Turco, of "associating the Italian Government" in the action of the European Commission which is appealing against large American multinationals producers of tobacco for contraband in cigarettes. This initiative, he comments, is also the "fruit of a new season of sound cooperation between Olaf, the European institutions and States in defending the Union's financial interests and, therefore, all European citizens".
*** Cyprus/Greece: In an interview with the Greek press agency ANA, Cyprus' Finance Minister, Takis Klerides, said that his country, which should register growth of 4.8% for the third consecutive year, was preparing to join the EU on 1 January 2003. In addition, on the initiative of the Defence Minister Akis Tsohatsopoulos, the Greek Government has adopted a memorandum on cooperation with Cyprus regarding "crisis management": according to the spokesman for the Greek Government,. This documents provides for "cooperation and coordination" between Athens and Nicosia so as to "prevent, plan and face up to any crisis in Greece, Cyprus or in the two countries at the same time". (You may recall that, since November 1993, Greece and Cyprus are tied by an agreement called "Common Defence Dogma").
*** Nice Summit/federalists/Constitution: In a press release, the President of the Young Federalists, Paolo Vacca and the General Secretary of the International European Movement, Pier Virigilio Dastoli announced that they would be in Nice on 6 and 7 December to "back the European Union's transformation into a federal Union, with a Constitution, drawn up democratically by the representatives of European citizens". Messrs. Vacca and Dastoli urge all forces of civil society to demonstrate "with us in Nice for a democratic and federal European Constitution". In addition, the Union of European Federalists, chaired by Jo Leinen, welcomed the proposal of The Economist of 28 October on a Constitution for the European Union, while deploring the fact that the system suggested would to lead to the "centralisation of powers in the hands of the Council, which means in the hands of an intergovernmental institution which is not subject to democratic control", that it makes of the Council "the supreme legislative body" and that it relegates the EP to a minor role (with an "unrealistic" number of MEPs of 100) and the Commission to the role of "Union Secretariat".
*** EP/Greece: Yannis Theonas MEP, who sits with the European United Left in the EP, has left his party, the KKE (Communist Party of Greece) and is leaving the European Parliament, following a "conflict" with the Party's leadership, says the press agency ANA. Mr. Theonas protested against the "political culture" which recently recommended the expulsion of three eminent members of the KKE.
*** EU/Bulgaria: A Bulgarian fashion show under the slogan "ready-to-Schegen" (rather than "ready-to-wear") was organised before the French embassy in Sofia, in the context of a campaign for the abolition of visas that the EU imposes on Bulgarians (only country, with Romania, among the candidates for membership to be subjected to that obligation). One of the organisers considered that that the presence of "beautiful models shows that the name of Bulgaria has not only to be associated, in the eyes of Europeans, with car thieves, faces of criminals, prostitutes and corrupt officials".
*** OECD/European Commission: Ambassador John Maddison is the new European Commission Permanent Representative to the OECD. Official at the Commission since 1973, he has, in particular, been Head of the Commission's Delegation in Norway. He succeeds Ambassador Piergiorgio Mazzocchi.
*** European University Institute of Florence: Sir John Browne, Chief Executive of British Petroleum delivered the inaugural lecture for the BP Chair in Transatlantic Relations at the European University of Florence.