Brussels, 10/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - For its first plenary of the year, on 18 and 19 January in Brussels under the chairmanship of Anne-Marie Sigmund, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) will receive Austria's Minister of the Economy and Labour, Martin Bartenstein, who will present the joint programme of the Austrian and Finnish EU Presidencies. The agenda of this session is relatively light: five opinions will be submitted to the scrutiny of the economic and social advisers. They concern: - the conservation of electronic data accessible to the public (general rapporteur: Hernandez Bataller, Various Interests, Spain); - fundamental rights and justice (rapporteur: Ms King, Employers Group, Greece); - excise duty on alcohol (Mr Wilkinson, Employers, UK); - and the European Observatory on drugs and drug abuse (Mr Olsson, Various Interests, Sweden). The fifth opinion is an own-initiative opinion prepared with a view to the Finnish EU Presidency by Mr Kallio (Various Interests, Finland) on sustainable development in agriculture, forestry and fishing given the challenges of climate change.
In his own-initiative opinion, Seppo Kallio, who is director for international issues at the confederation of agricultural producers and forestry owners (MTK), mainly considers it essential that the EU substantially increase its resources intended for research in order to analyse climate change and policies for adapting to such changes and to implement precautionary policies. He also calls on the EU to intensify its efforts aimed at improving food safety and supply security. When it comes to fishing policy, Mr Kallio considers it is necessary to evaluate the changes necessary to ensure that the sector is able to adapt to change. He stresses, moreover, that there is a need to promote reforestation not only within the EU but also in the rest of the world, which should also be a priority of EU development policy.
We point out that, in the series of “Thursday Meetings” chaired by Ms Sigmund, the fifth debate will be held on 19 January with speaker Franz Alt, former journalist for German television and a member of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative think-tank, who will present his book on “Europe's Hope: the strategy of togetherness”. (Information: http://www.esc.eu.int/president/thursdaymeetings/index_fr.asp ).