FOLLOWING THE EUROPEAN UNION

Do you agree with the Popes position? Should religion be put into the mix?

But nimh also wrote that "the EU should be a union of people, not a union of lands and histories".
Well, people don't come without land or without history.

EU enlargement may prove to be better for some than for others

If the UK job market remains strong it will attract large number of workers form the accession countries
By Hamish McRae
07 August 2003

There has been a huge amount of speculation about the impact of enlargement on the politics of Europe but rather less on the impact on its economy.

In shorthand, the general political proposition has been that enlargment helps fringe members of the European Union, such as Britain and the Scandinavian countries, because it dilutes the clout of the core, in particular France and Germany.

It is quite plausible, however, that there will be a parallel economic impact. Quite of a lot of us have argued that enlargement will be good for the European economy in general for all sorts of reasons. What I am just beginning to wonder is whether the impact will be differential: in other words, the fringe will benefit while the core will suffer. Since the fringe is already growing faster than the core, this will reinforce a trend that is already established and eventually lead to a quite different balance of economic power in the EU.

The European Union urged Maoist rebels Saturday to negotiate "constructively" with Nepal's government and expressed concern about a stalemate in peace negotiations.

A statement by EU ambassadors in Kathmandu "asked the Maoists to show a will to negotiate constructively given the public commitment to a peaceful settlement to the conflict in Nepal."

"The EU in Kathmandu (views) the outcome of the third round of peace talks and the prospects for the next round with increasing concern," it said.

EU Business
"There can be no acceptable resolution to the conflict in Nepal by violent means," the statement said, calling upon the two sides "to take necessary steps to maintain the ceasefire and move the negotiating process forward."

The statement follows a similar appeal Friday from the US embassy in Kathmandu, which asked all players in Nepal to "work together in the national interest to find a lasting negotiated settlement to this conflict."

A long-delayed third round of peace talks since a ceasefire took effect January 29 broke down Tuesday with the rebels insisting on a "constituent assembly" to redraft the constitution.

Overshadowing the talks was the army's killing on August 16 of at least 17 Maoist cadres, for which the rebels demanded an apology.

Amnesty International, which gave a toll of 19 dead, expressed concern about reports the Maoists were killed after being taken into custody.

"Authorities must establish an independent and impartial inquiry into these allegations of extrajudicial killings and make the findings public. The bodies of those killed should not be cremated until autopsies to establish the cause and manner of death are performed," the London-based human rights group said.

The army says 17 Maoists were killed after they ambushed troops in the village of Toramba, 290 kilometres (181 miles) east of Kathmandu.

The Maoists have called an August 27 strike in eastern Nepal to protest the killings.

More than 7,800 people have died since the Maoists launched their "people's war" in 1996 aimed at overthrowing the constitutional monarchy.

Sat August 23, 2003 06:03 AM ET
By Wangui Kanina

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - Southern Africa's main trade group on Saturday urged Western governments to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe as ministers began debating how to battle conflict and AIDS in the region, officials said.

The European Union and Australia imposed "smart sanctions" on Zimbabwe's government over the controversial 2002 re-election of President Robert Mugabe. Earlier this year a planned summit of EU and leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was scrapped over the issue.

"Sanctions on Zimbabwe are hurting the people of Zimbabwe and should be lifted," said SADC's executive secretary and CEO Prega Ramsamy, a Mauritian national.

Top German judge fears too hasty EU constitution

BRUSSELS (by Euroserver)
21.08.2003 - 17:25 CET
A top German judge, based at the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, has said that he fears that Europe is pushing ahead with its plans for an EU Constitution too quickly.

In an interview with the EUobserver, Professor Siegfried Bross, a constitutional judge and leading expert in European law, said "the problem is that the process at EU level is going too quickly and a certain slowing down would not be amiss".

He adds that the new Constitution is such an "extraordinary treaty and the EU is such a complex organism itself that I cannot, as a lawyer and judge, understand why there is so much time pressure and why more time is not taken to think over certain issues".

One of the biggest problems with the draft Constitution, in Prof. Bross' opinion, is that it does not account for a dispute over competences between the EU and its member states.

"This is a big gap that should not be underestimated", said the judge.

Big gap in the Constitution
He calls for a separate court to judge on disputes over competences. The European Court of Justice cannot do this as it may not rule on national constitutional law and the equivalent national courts may not do it as they cannot rule on interpretation of European law.

Such a new court should be at European level and should have a representative from each member state - but it should not be a European institution.

He uses the current dispute between the EU and Germany over EU legislation to ban tobacco advertising as an example of where such a court would be useful.

"In the tobacco case the problem was whether it was about economics law, competition law or health law. Such a case would be for the competence court as Germany disputed the EU's competence in this matter".

Disputes over competences to increase
Professor Siegfried Bross feels such cases will be become more common in the future when the EU claims more and more competences for itself.

The subsidiarity principle - which says that the EU should only act if the goal cannot be better achieved by the member states - offers no relief to the competence confusion, according to Prof. Bross.

This is because once the member states transfer powers to the Commission, they implicitly acknowledge that it is better done at the EU level and so they cannot invoke the subsidiarity principle at a later stage.

Referendum
Prof. Bross believes that he is not alone in feeling this way, although it is unusual for a constitutional judge to enter the political arena on such topical issues.

"My opinion is, and I have to speak here from a neutral point of view and not in connection with the house [German Constitutional Court], that I am not alone in these thoughts".

The question is whether someone chooses to say it in public, he adds.

Prof. Bross is also in favour of a referendum on the Constitution - referenda are currently are not allowed at the federal level in Germany.

This issue, he says, should have been sorted out at national level before the Convention [which drew up the draft EU Constitution] was given its mandate.

Foreign - Wednesday 27.8.2003

Vanhanen in Brussels admits changing EU draft Constitution not easy

Finnish Prime Minister meets Commission President Prodi


Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) admits that it will be difficult for Finland to push through the changes it wants in the proposed EU Constitution.
Finland feels that the draft of the European Convention only laid the groundwork for the Constitution when it submitted its report earlier this year, and that the actual constitution will be drawn up in the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) which begins in October.
Germany, the largest country of the EU, and France and Italy, want to leave the draft untouched.
"The question will be a difficult one, as there is pressure from the other side that the treaty should be approved as such", said Vanhanen in Brussels on Tuesday. He was in the city to meet the President of the European Commission Romano Prodi.
Vanhanen said that he is nevertheless confident there will be many other member states in addition to Finland who want to see changes in the text of the draft; he mentioned Austria and Portugal as countries who are thinking along the same lines as Finland.
Of the large member states, the UK is believed to want to discuss possible changes to the draft.

In their talks Vanhanen and Prodi discussed the issue of subsidies for farms in Southern Finland growing garden produce and raising domestic animals.
Negotiations on the issue are still under way, but Prodi took a somewhat negative view of Finland's calls for more subsidies for farmers in Southern Finland.
"We must not create excessively large differences in the agricultural policies of the different member states", Prodi said.
Finland would like to increase subsidies for farms in the south of the country, bringing them closer to the level of support available for agriculture in Northern Finland. Prodi said that this would be difficult, because the trend is for agricultural subsidies to be scaled down.
Finland's Minister of Agriculture Juha Korkeaoja (Centre) is scheduled to discuss the issue with the European Commissioner for Agriculture Franz Fischler later in the autumn.

EU convention head urges Germany to help pass draft constitution

BERLIN, Sept 9 (AFP)
Former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing called Tuesday on Germany to help ensure that a draft European Union constitution he helped prepare is adopted without major changes.

"We would be happy with anything that you could do to help ensure that this constitution is adopted," Giscard d'Estaing said at a press conference here with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Giscard d'Estaing headed the Convention on the future of Europe, which earlier this year drew up the draft of the document endorsed by EU leaders in June, and has been described by some as the father of the constitution.

Schroeder reiterated that Germany was wanted the constitution adopted in its present form.

In the past, both men have said that any "unpicking" of the document, which was drawn up after months of hard debate, could lead to its undoing.

The 25 current and future EU leaders and their foreign ministers will meet in Rome on October 4 at the start of the Intergovernmental Conference which will formally debate the new EU constitution over the following months.

The constitution aims to increase efficiency in the EU when it expands from 15 to 25 members, mostly former Soviet bloc nations, on May 1 next year.

It foresees a new EU president and major reforms of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, among other plans, but it has been criticised by small states who fear it will further boost larger members' domination of the EU.

The Commission is also concerned about plans to slim it down and create a new EU president.

Countries like Britain have also promised to fight any moves that could threaten their national vetoes in key areas such as tax and defence.

Text and Picture Copyright © 2003 AFP.

Portrait of a marriage

When Silvio Berlusconi first laid eyes on Veronica Lario, he was enchanted - and left his wife to marry her. Now she's come out as a pacifist and he accuses her of infidelity with a Marxist academic. Peter Popham reports on a very Italian affair

Main Street, Crawford, Texas, where George Bush has his ranch ("White House West"), was this week strung with banners shouting "Benvenuti da Crawford" and "Dio Benedice l'Italia". Italy's billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was Bush's guest at the ranch [..]

But Veronica Lario, Berlusconi's second wife, [..] stayed home. Maybe this time it was just as well: Veronica's opposition to the Iraq war is a matter of record. The chat over the clam chowder might have gotten a little too lively for Bush's liking. But Veronica always stays home. [..]

It was Silvio himself who gratuitously exposed his marital problems to the glare of publicity. Last October during Denmark's turn at the rotating European Union presidency, Denmark's dashing young Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, was in Rome for talks. He and Silvio held a press conference. With that cocksure, cruise-ship-crooner grin of his, which close Silvio watchers have learnt to identify as a harbinger of his most unconscionable clangers, Berlusconi remarked, "Rasmussen is the most handsome prime minister in Europe." The grin twitched a little wider, out came those uncannily gleaming teeth. "I think I will introduce him to my wife, because he is even more handsome than Cacciari." At his side, Rasmussen's own smile froze on his face. What on earth was the Italian talking about?

Berlusconi was alluding to rumours doing the rounds that he had been cuckolded by a bearded Marxist philosopher called Massimo Cacciari, a former mayor of Venice and a university professor. Like other stunning remarks by the Italian Prime Minister - such as his comparison the other day, for example, of a German MEP to a guard in a Nazi concentration camp [..] - it seemed like a deliberate and pointless own goal. As well as an outrageous slur on the woman he has routinely called "my great love." [..]

For her part, Veronica Lario reacted to the humiliation dumped on her by her husband with the stoical silence that has long been her trademark. [..] But last week, surprised at a performance of Macbeth in the city of Piacenza, she allowed her reserve to slip a little. "Your husband is a very busy man," the journalist noted. "Do you get to see him or speak to him on the telephone?"

"There is not only the telephone," she responded, smiling. "Sometimes I can even see him on television!"

And obliquely she added her own endorsement to her husband's amazing "cuckold" declaration. "My daughter Barbara has enrolled in the philosophy faculty of San Raffaele University, where Cacciari teaches," she told the reporter with no prompting. "It seems an ideal situation, don't you think?" [..]

Before the general election of 2001 - which he won by a landslide - Berlusconi commissioned and published an autobiographical memoir about himself entitled An Italian Story and had copies distributed to 12 million homes throughout the land. The book strove to depict Berlusconi as both heroically successful and stunningly normal at once: grinning and shaking hands with world leaders, but never happier than when returning to the comforts of plain home cooking - no garlic, no onions - of his "great love", surrounded by his loving family.

But in reality, as Veronica admitted to the local reporter last week, she sees her husband in the flesh "very rarely, I would say". She has never been a political wife, standing by his side on the stump, but Italy's gossips have pointed out that they no longer even go on holiday together [..]

They have the wherewithal to lead separate lives: he has his official residence in Rome, Palazzo Chigi, and the fabulous apartment near Piazza Navona that is his preferred billet in the capital; he has also, as he likes to boast, "houses all over the world", including his favourite holiday villa in Sardinia. He need never go home at all.

Villa Arcore, abode of his "great love", does however have a special place in his heart, because it is here that he has constructed his tomb. Long before Berlusconi entered politics, he gave the BBC's veteran Rome correspondent David Willey a tour of the place. "Silvio Berlusconi's underground mausoleum has 100 tonnes of marble abstract sculpture on top," he wrote. "You enter it by a stairway reminiscent of pre-Roman burial sites, pass through a narrow corridor and enter an imposing square burial chamber with a pink marble and granite sarcophagus in the centre. It looks for all the world like the tomb of a pharaoh. All around are niches ready to receive other remains. They are for Silvio's family, and also his 'collaborators'...

[..] what has happened in the past few months to make both of them drop their guard, to admit their growing distance and the arrival of new love interests on the scene? Perhaps the reason is political: if Veronica truly is the love of Professor Cacciari - as she has come close to acknowledging - it is a step towards the political enemy that would surely be regarded by this most vehement anti-communist as a betrayal. The offence was compounded in the run up to the Iraq war when Veronica gave an interview to Micro Mega, a magazine notably hostile to Berlusconi, in which she praised Italy's pacifists, saying, "I believe the pacifist movement serves to re-awaken our consciences." [..]

So perhaps, after the years of make-believe and luxurious entombment, it really is all over between Silvio and Veronica, bar the haggling over terms. But if Mr Berlusconi truly is the magnificent cuckold, he has arranged that no one need waste too much pity on him. Paparazzi from a scandal sheet called Visto ("Seen") managed mysteriously to penetrate the dense security of Berlusconi's Sardinian villa last summer and photographed him relaxing in the company of his shiny new personal assistant and secretary, Francesca Romana Impiglia: aged 21, a stunning, high-bosomed, fine-boned blonde - a dead ringer, as has been noted, for Veronica in her younger days.

But there's one important difference from Veronica: Francesca's political credentials are immaculate. Her father, a funeral director, is a town councillor for Berlusconi's party Forza Italia in the province of Ancona, and a close friend of a political intimate of Berlusconi (and former member of his government), Vittorio Sgarbi. And Francesca seems to be the same way inclined herself: not long after making the Prime Minister's acquaintance she found herself running Forza Italia's national youth branch.

Latvians support EU overwhelmingly

By The Baltic Times

RIGA - Two-thirds of Latvian voters expressed their support for joining the European Union in the crucial Saturday referendum that also saw the first signs of collapse in the ruling government coalition.

With just over 1 million people turning out to vote on a banner weekend day, over 674,000 said "yes" to European integration, according to the Central Election Commission.

Estonian voters support EU accession

By Aleksei Gunter (The Baltic Times)

TALLINN - In a historic referendum on Sept. 14, which marked a major turning point for the country after more than 10 years of difficult social and economic transition, almost 67 percent of Estonian voters said "yes" to EU accession. As of May 1, 2004, Estonia will become an official member of the European Union.