Brief items for which space was lacking in earlier editions
*** EU/enlargement: In support of its EU candidacy, Hungary is to send President Prodi an eight-by-four meter letter that it would like to see appear in the "Guinness Book of Records". Each Hungarian so wishing will be able to put a postal stamp on the giant letter.
*** Euro/Sweden: Swedish Finance Minister Bosse Ringholm said that a referendum on Sweden's signing up to the euro would only be held in 2002, as the Committee instructed by the Government to formulate an opinion on the economic impact of accession would end its work in about a year and a half.
*** EU/institutional reform: `We don't feel the time is right", said a spokesman for Tony Blair, commenting on the suggestion of electing the president of the European Commission, made by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in a speech before the Belgian Parliament.
*** Rfy/EBRD: The President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Jean Lemierre, said that the Fry should become a member of the EBRD by the end of the year, and that he would like to see the early launch of "a mechanism to finance SMEs there, as there is a fabric of companies, entrepreneurs and an economic fabric that is working".
*** WEU/Staff: At the WEU Council in Marseilles, in a Statement, WEU staff observed that "today, ministers will agree redundancy measures for most of the staff of the WEU Secretariat-General, demanding: "Why fire some 50 qualified staff members who have the kind of experience that the EU needs to build its Common Security and Defence Policy?" To date, the EU has taken on just one member of our staff, whereas NATO has already recruited well over a dozen", says the Statement, stressing that, eighteen months after the Cologne Summit, "the EU has still not come forward with genuine proposals to meet its own needs". Addressing the Fifteen, the WEU staff (alluding to the dispute with the staff of the EU Secretariat-General instigated by the recruitment to the Council of staff working for the Schengen Secretariat) asks: "Why bow down to antiquated corporatist concepts rather than take advantage of expertise unanimously regognised by Member States and other international organisations?".
*** EU/Cfsp: in a speech before the Dutch section of the Liberal International of The Hague, Javier Solana spoke of the results of the EU's policy in Serbia, considering that "the openness of President Kostunica" was an "enormous opportunity for the region as a whole", whereas he regretted the "crisis of confidence" between Israelis and Palestinians (we are determined to "work patiently in the corridors" to help them overcome it, he said, noting that the Summit of charm-el Sheikh had, "for the first time, allowed the EU to be directly involved in seeking a solution in the Middle East).
*** EP/Turkey: When voting on the Morillon Report on EU/Turkey relations, last week, the amendment of the Front National which "denounced" the decision of Helsinki to grant Turkey the status of candidate for EU membership, and which was rejected, received the backing not only of the FN and Mr. Speroni of the Lega Nord, as well as several members of the Union for a Europe of Nations, but also that of Italian Socialist Martelli and a series of members of the EPP Group (mostly German): Berend, Ferber, Grossetete, Jeggle, Keppelhoff-Wiechert, Koch, Langen, Laschet, Lechner, Marinos, Xavier Mayer, Menrad, Mombaur, Posselt, Radwan, Schleischer, Trakatellis, Wuermeling, Xarchakos, Zacharakis Another amendment stating that Turkey was not a European country received the backing, notably of the Liberal Watson, Socialists Adam, Aparicio Sanchez, Bowe, Goebbels, Hazan and Hughes, the EPP members Marinos, Schierhuber and Zacharakis, and the Green Voggenhuber
*** EP/Italy: in an appeal to European intellectuals (signed in particular, in Germany, by Habermas), the Euro-MP member of the Democratici di sinistra, Gianni Vattimo, drew attention to the initiatives of the Italian right-wing, revealing recent revisionist tendencies of the right-wing in Europe, i.e., the initiative of the President of the Region of Lazio, Francesco Storace (Alleanza Nazionale), who wanted to set up a committee of experts to "assess the impartiality" of history books which, he claims, engage in "Marxist propaganda" The affair caused quite stir in Italy, but, in his appeal, Mr. Vattimo denounces the growing trend of the right-wing in Europe, "even when it claims to be liberal", of accepting alliances with the "heirs of fascism, nazism and racism"
*** PES/Italy: In a press release, Claudio Martelli MEP waxed indignant that the Socialist Group to which he had belonged had declared that he had "excluded himself", having left the Socialisti Democratici Italiani of Enrico Boselli Obviously, for Baron Crespo, if one is an Italian Socialist one cannot form part of the European Socialist Group: one has to be a former Communist like Veltroni or satellites of former Communists like Boselli", said the former Minister, who has joined the Technical Group where he sits "as representative of the new Partido Socialista Italiano"