Brussels, 29/06/2001 (Agence Europe) - The conference of Presidents of political groups in the European Parliament only slightly modified the agenda of the plenary session next week in Strasbourg (see EUROPE OF 23 June, p.10). Two declarations from the Commission on (1) CMO for fruits and vegetables and (2) air transport and the environment are added to Monday evening and the Lannoye report on sugars ("breakfast" Directive) is postponed. On Tuesday evening, the Commission Communication will cover the Green Paper concerning the social responsibility of companies and will be presented by Commissioners Anna Diamantopoulou and Erkki Liikanen. On Wednesday, after the debate on the programme of the Belgian Presidency, a debate on the situation in Macedonia is added, introduced by the declarations from the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs Louis Michel for the Council and Commissioner Chris Patten. The vote on the common draft Directive on takeovers (Lehne report) will take place Wednesday at noon, while several political groups (ESP, EPP-ED and Green/ALE, among others) must still debate, on Tuesday, the position that they will adopt on this highly controversial dossier (see EUROPE of 29 June, p.13). The Liberal group already announced that it would vote for the final draft in order to preserve twelve years of work. Below are the issues retained for the emergency debate on Thursday: - death penalty; - candidacy of Beijing to 2008 Olympic games (though the ESP and GUE/NGL groups are opposed); - human rights; - illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; - earthquake in Peru.
The Conference of President also decided to invite the Dalai Lama as spiritual leader to the second session in October. It approved the opinion of the Legal Committee on the fiscal derogation, which could be granted to four countries to allow for the adoption of the statute of MEPs (see EUROPE of 29 June, p.10)": Mrs Fontaine will pass on this opinion to the Council. Furthermore, Mrs Fontaine, who has until 5 July to do so, consulted the conference of Presidents over the introduction of an appeal for the cancellation of the security regulations adopted by the Council last summer (Solana decision). In order to maintain pressure on the Council in the negotiation on EP access to classified document, the conference of Presidents spoke out in favour of the introduction of an appeal (the EPP-ED, GUE/NGL and Greens/ALE groups voted for; the Socialist and Liberals abstained), but the final decision is the President's.
It must also be noted that the register of financial interests of MEPs will become available on the Internet, on 1 July. However, it will be necessary to wait a little before the publication of the list of parliamentarian assistants since it requires the authorisation of the MEPs and the assistants concerned. They should, nevertheless, be ready on 12 July.