The debate under way about the future of the European Union and the population’s security will be some of the subjects that will be addressed by the plenary meeting of the Committee of the Regions, the EU Advisory Body, which will meet in Brussels tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. During this session, the CoR will appoint a new President to replace Peter Straub and to stay in office for the first to years of the 2006-2010 term. The nominees, supported by the main political groups, are the French MP Michel Delebarre, mayor of Dunkerque, for the Socialist group, and the Belgian senator Luc van den Brande, member of the Flemish Parliament, for the People’s Party group. The Committee will have to define some policies for the future and will be called to give its opinion on: “Strategy for the consumers’ health and protection”; “Doing more with less The Green Book on energy efficiency”; “Public Passenger Transport services by road and railway”. The COR meeting will have two guests: the European Commissioner Franco Frattini and the Austrian Undersecretary of State for foreign affairs Hans Winkler. Established in 1994 by the Maastricht Treaty, the Committee of the Regions is an “advisory body composed of representatives of the local and regional boards of Europe. Its main job is to “ensure that the latter may have their say in the EU decision-making process and that regional and local identities and rights are respected”.
