Brussels, 08/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament has added the statements made by the President of the Council, Josep Piqué, and the European Commission on Trans-Atlantic relations, to its plenary agenda in Strasbourg next Wednesday. Discussions will focus on US measures against steel imports. The Parliament must also approve a number of important reports on the Lisbon Process: Community patent (Monday: Palacio report: see EUROPE 22 February page 11); liberalisation of the postal services (Monday: Ferber report: see EUROPE 25-26 February page 12); internal gas and electricity and cross-border electricity exchange (Tuesday: Rapkay, Turmes and Mombaur reports: see EUROPE 28 February page 12); financial services (Wednesday: Huhne report on the securities market, Goebbels on market abuse for professional organisations and individuals, where as France wants a European commitment on the timetable for the latter (see EUROPE yesterday page 16).
Ana Palacio's report on the Community patent has been withdrawn from the agenda. It will be subject to a number of draft amendments, which will not change the essential body of the text and it not a matter of urgency given the lack of Council progress on the matter. Scottish National Party member (Greens/ALE), Neil MacCormick's report on the immunity of Italian MEPs will not be on the agenda either. The new Italian system gets rid of the lifting of political immunity proposed by the Italian judiciary. All Members of Parliament will have to ask their own assemblies to declare their immunity each time they are involved in a legal procedure. The Legal Committee is expected to assess the consequences for Italian MEPs at the EP but the MacCormick report wanted to go as far as proposing an amendment of the regulation, (which is effectively part of the principle of competence of the Constitutional Committee) and on which British Liberal Democrat MEP, Andrew Duff, is presenting a report on the amendment of certain provisions of the regulation currently being elaborated. These two reports were added to the agenda on Monday but will be subject to modification, along with the report of Danish Liberal, Ole Andreasen, on information and communication policy.
The Parliament will hold an additional hearing on 20 March, where the main subject will be the results of the Barcelona Summit, which will be presented by José Maria Aznar and Romano Prodi.
The report of Spanish Socialist Maria Izquierdo Royo on women and fundamentalism will arouse controversy. German Christian Democrat, Christa Klass has already announced that her group will reject this report, not because her group does not oppose fundamentalism but because the rapporteur has been motivated primarily by "anti-clericalism" (see full agenda in EUROPE 7 March page 16).