On line on December 19th, 20th and 21st, an experiment from SIR Daily News in English. The service will officially start on January 9th 2006
"The rotating chairmanship of the European Union must be regarded as a service rendered to Europe": when submitting the work plan at today’s meeting with the President of the EU Assembly and the Presidents of the Parliamentary groups, the Austrian Government got ready to take the lead of the six-monthly chair of the EU Council from the United Kingdom. The official takeover will take place on January 1st. Tomorrow, the outgoing Chairman, Tony Blair, will meet the Euro-MPs, to whom he will have to illustrate the results of the agreement on the 2007-2013 financial prospects, which still have to receive the go-ahead from Parliament. Today, instead, Ursula Plassnik, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Vienna, with Antti Peltomäki, the Finnish State Secretary for EU Affairs, jointly presented the work plan for the next twelve months, the first six months of which will be chaired by Austria, then by Finland. The four priorities presented by Ms Plassnik are: "Creating employment and development; securing and strengthening the specific European social model; rebuilding the citizens’ confidence in the European project; widening the EU’s credibility as a global partner". The program document drawn up by Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel includes three sections: the future of Europe; internal EU policies; foreign policy. Still today in Brussels, the President of the Commission, Portuguese José Manuel Durao Barroso, stated that, by approving the financial prospects, "Europe will be able to work", but, "with such an outlook, it will have to cut down on its ambitions".” “
