The place of "civil society". Three aspects of the European Commission's White Paper on "European governance" led to some concerns within the European Parliament, and Romano Prodi tried to be reassuring in Strasbourg this week (see our bulletin of 3 October, pp. 8/9). The first aspect concerns the insufficiency of parliamentary control over the Commission's "executive role". The second relates to the fear that the Commission's thrust in favour of self-regulation of certain economic sectors...