Brussels, 09/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - The President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, is to meet Minister-President of the government of Brussels, Daniel Ducarme this Friday 10 October, to discuss Brussels' position European capital. This meeting follows a series of questions by Romano Prodi in the columns of Belgian daily "Le Soir" at the end of last month. "What will be the symbols of Brussels, capital of Europe, in the 21st century?" was one of the questions of the European Commission President. "Brussels is a very nice place to live. But the question is: what does living in the capital of Europe mean? I need you to make suggestions that we can share and support. We need a plan. I am think museums, discussion forums", he explained, adding: "I have asked the question, but I have not had any satisfactory answers". The Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital region, who last week presented 133 projects to re-invigorate the European quarter, hopes to use the meeting to prepare an international conference on the subject by the end of the year. The idea was to prepare the Belgian capital for the official entry of ten new Member States on 1 May next year.
A working group, set up in 2001 by European Commission President, Romano Prodi, and Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, had already tackled the theme "Brussels Capital of Europe" (see EUROPE of 22 September 2001), and produced a bulging report presenting various ideas. One of its members, Gérard Mortier, appointed director of the Opéra de Paris, has also just expressed, in the pages of "Le Soir", the idea of creating a European University "at the same level as the American Ivy League universities such as Harvard and Yale". In the spirit of one who has held top jobs in several European opera-houses (Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, the Monnaie in Brussels), and at the Salzburg festival, he added that this "high-level institution, where the best universities would delegate their top professors" would allow "the European elite to come together".