Brussels, 17/11/2000 (Agence Europe) - The EU Member State Ministers for Foreign Affairs will have, as of Sunday afternoon and until Tuesday, a very heavy agenda. The General Affairs Council (GAC) on Monday will be preceded, Sunday as of 13pm, by a conclave under the IGC in view of the European Council in Nice. The IGC will gather in Monday at 15pm, for a simple exchange of views with the EP President Nicole Fontaine.
Monday morning, at the same time as the GAC which starts at 9: 30am, the Defence Ministers will hold the Conference for the commitment of military capabilities (meeting that will be of an intergovernmental nature and not Community). After lunch that they will have in the company of Javier Solana, the EU Defence Ministers will participate, as of 15pm, in the GAC which they will inform of the undertakings they have made. European security and defence policy should be the only point to be discussed by the Council on Monday afternoon. The Defence Ministers and Javier Solana will dine with the NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson. On Tuesday the EU Defence Minister will meet their counterparts from the twelve countries taking part on accession negotiations as well as those from Turkey, Norway and Iceland. They will then have a more restrained meeting (which, if need be, will be continued after lunch) with the Defence Ministers from the NATO allies that are not members of the EU: Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Poland, the Czech Republic and Turkey.
Monday in the early evening, the GAC will end to allow for the holding of the accession conferences with Lithuania and Bulgaria. Tuesday morning, similar conferences will take place with Malta, Romania, Slovakia and Latvia.
See articles and following pages for the agendas of the programmes for various the meetings