Brussels, 24/03/2004 (Agence Europe) - Marc Otte, Special Representative of the EU for the Middle East, mentioned on Monday in Tunis, together with the Tunisian minister for foreign affairs, Habib Ben Yahia, that the Arab League Summit was being prepared for 28 March in Tunis and that the CFSP High Representative Javier Solana would be taking part. Themes to be tackled include: the expected EU strategy for the Middle East and the Mediterranean (EUROPE yesterday p 6) and the US "Wider Middle East" initiative, which has received an very lukewarm response from some Arab League Member States. The US government has proposed the adoption of joint declaration on this subject during the G-8 Summits, at Sea Island in Florida on 8-10 June, the EU/USA in Ireland on 26 June and NATO in Istanbul on 28-29 June (EUROPE 16 March p 7) on information according to which the USA intends to amend their initial draft to take into account the conclusions of the Arab League Summit.