"The values advocated by the EU Commission have remained whole and are still essential in the extended Europe. I am glad to see that the EU Commission remains, today, the living symbol, the image itself of the European Union". It was up to the president of the EU Commission, José Manuel Barroso, to present the book, out the next week-end, which tells the story of the integration process through the "magnifying lens" of the Executive. The book (over 600 pages, coordinated by Michel Dumoulin, professor at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, is part of the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the EU and tells about the "facts and characters" that have been at work within the EU Commission in the period 1958-1972. The research work also includes 120 interviews with the protagonists of the "first stage of the European Community", when the member states were just six. "In 1973 explains experts , with the first accession, a new stage in the history of the EEC began". The book will first be out in French, "which will be followed by the editions in other languages: in English in early July, in German in late July, in Italian and Dutch in September". It will be available either in paperback at 30 euros or hardback at 70 euros. ” ” ” “
