Brussels, 25/09/2008 (Agence Europe) - Spain, Belgium and Hungary will be the successive presidencies of the EU between January 2010 and July 2011. They continued their consultations on implementation on paper of a joint work programme for their “Trio-Presidency” this week in Madrid (24 September). The first meeting held between the three secretaries of state, Diego Lopez Barrido (Spain), Olivier Chastel (Belgium) and Gabor Ivan (Hungary) took place in May this year in Brussels. Mr Ivan explained to the Hungarian press that several priorities had provisionally been retained by the three countries: continued implementation of the Lisbon strategy with a new phase (focusing on social policy, education and research) will be launched in March 2011; climate/energy (implementation of Copenhagen conference results in December 2009); Bulgaria and Romania's possible entry into Schengen area and Croatia's possible accession to the EU. (H.B./transl.rh)