Brussels, 05/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - Ahead of next year's celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, Romano Prodi has appointed Renato Ruggiero as his “adviser on the European Constitution” says Tuesday's Corriere della sera. The newspaper says that Ambassador Ruggiero will be responsible particularly for working with Angela Merkel's team with a view to drafting the solemn declaration which is to be adopted at the informal European Council, due to be held in Berlin on 25 March 2007. Renato Ruggiero has, inter alia, been Italy's Permanent Representative to the EC, Director General for regional policy at the European Commission, Director General for information and spokesman for Commission President Roy Jenkins, minister for overseas trade, Director General of the WTO (1995-1999) and foreign minister in the Berlusconi government (for only six months in 2001).
On 17 September, the European Movement Belgium is holding an open day at the Domaine de Val Duchesse and the Château Sainte-Anne in Brussels, as a reminder that the negotiations which led to the signing of the Treaties of Rome, setting up a European Economic Community and Euratom, took place in Brussels in the autumn of 1956, says a press release. These negotiations, marked by the “method of Paul Henri Spaak” (Spaak was Belgian foreign minister at the time), the “talent of experts” and the “will of leaders”, were made possible by the determination and courage of those political leaders, stresses the press release. Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian Prime Minister, accompanied by people who witnessed events at the time, will open an “educational route” at Val Duchesse.
To prepare the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the bishops of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) is setting up a Committee of the Wise to draft a report on the impact of ethical values in the process of European unification. The Committee will meet for the first time in Brussels on 11 September and will present its report to a European Congress to be held in Rome from 23 to 25 March. This Congress will be prepared at a seminar in Clermont-Ferrand from 9 to 11 October.
European Parliament Plenary Session