Brussels, 17/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - The European Council will begin on Thursday 19 March with the traditional meeting of European leaders and the President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Pöttering (at 4.00pm). The first working session for heads of state and government (at 4.45pm) will be focus on how to enhance the EU's energy security in the medium and long term and on climate change so that a common EU position can be reached before the Copenhagen conference in December 2009. The main topic at this Spring Summit, the European response to the financial and economic crisis, will then be discussed. “We shall look both at what is required to get the credit flowing again and at the necessary concrete lessons to be drawn for the future from the crisis,” says the letter of invitation sent by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek to his EU counterparts. This discussion will continue over dinner, with European leaders trying in particular to define a common EU position for the G20 Summit on 2 April. They will also try to reach agreement on the Community contribution of €5 billion towards economic recovery. Topolánek will use the debate to inform the others of his intentions ahead of the informal summit on 7 May, devoted to the impact of the crisis on employment. At a separate dinner foreign ministers will discuss international issues related to the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan and their finance colleagues will take stock of the results of the G20 ministerial meeting and on the issues of particular importance for the London meeting. The Eastern partnership will be adopted the following morning, Friday 20 March.
In a joint letter sent to the Czech President on Tuesday 17 March, the French President and the German Chancellor call for unified European action, in order to “seize the historic opportunity that is being offered us to settle the deep causes of the current crisis a the G20 Summit in London on 2 April. The first priority is to build a new global financial architecture”. The need for supervision must not, then, fall down the order of importance (after economic recovery) and the European Council should give full backing to the recommendations of the de Larosière group, says Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. Their letter thus sets out a whole series of messages that European leaders have to take on board if there are to be “concrete results” from the G20: registering hedge funds, sanction mechanism for uncooperative jurisdictions still to be determined, transparency of wage policy, review of Basle II and accounting standards, etc. (A.B./transl.rt)