Sweden

GERMANY, Belgium and the Netherlands will ask the European Court of Justice next week to declare that the Commission overstepped its powers by concluding a special import agreement with four Latin American banana-producing nations.

THE Belgian government is about to discover later this month the degree of support emerging for its campaign to consolidate the Schengen Convention by the end of the year.

EUROPEAN Union farm ministers will meet later this month to discuss a proposal which some observers believe signals the first step towards unravelling the Common Agricultural Policy.

AgricultureNo votes: UK 8, Denmark 8, Netherlands 5, Germany 4, Luxembourg 3, Greece 3, Italy 3, Portugal 3, Sweden 3, Belgium 2, Spain 2, Austria 2, Ireland 1, Finland 1.

IT HAS taken barely six months for the optimism which greeted the abolition of border controls and passport checks between seven European Union countries in the Schengen Agreement to turn to concern about the long-term viability of the agreement itself.

ELEVEN male judges will decide next week whether discrimination in favour of women is against EU law and should be banned.

EU environment ministers agreed to argue for a tighter upper limit on the use and production of ozone depleting hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) at the Vienna conference beginning on 28 November. They agreed to try to move forward the date for phasing out their use in developed countries from 2030 to 2015. Council also agreed to cut the use of the pesticide methyl bromide by 25% by 1998 and 50% by 2005.

THE EU faces legal action in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over its cereals import regime.

EU transport ministers reached a common position on rules for the carriage of dangerous goods by rail. Agreement was reached once Denmark had been reassured that the tighter rules agreed for the Channel Tunnel rail link could be applied to similar tunnel projects in the future.

THE European Commission yesterday (4 October) approved a proposal ensuring the solvency of an insurance company is not undermined if it is part of a larger insurance group. The draft directive specifies that information on insurance companies in a group must be more transparent, national controlling authorities must pool data, and double-gearing, which allows financial services firms to use the same capital base in a banking transaction and in an insurance activity, must be eliminated.

THREE and a half years after the Maastricht Treaty committed the EU to promoting the creation of a web of trans-European transport, energy and telecommunications networks (TENs), a brand new committee of the Council of Ministers will meet this month to begin handing out the cash.

Commissioners certainly lead colourful lives.

Rory WatsonGERMANY and Britain – two of the European Union’s largest members – lose more votes than any other EU country when the Council of Ministers ballots to adopt legislation.

THE European Union has taken a significant step towards fulfilling its ambition of becoming a world political power following a decision to give it – and not the United Nations – responsibility for overseeing long-awaited Palestinian elections.

PORTUGUESE Socialists are preparing to form a government whose main priority will be a firm commitment to monetary union and a single currency after their best-ever general election result ended ten years in opposition.

Carl Bildt would have good reason to be disappointed that the peace accord agreed by warring parties in Bosnia is being called the “Holbrooke plan” after US negotiator Richard Holbrooke, and is not named after him.

Sweden’s Ingvar Carlsson did not send his voice out to the people, but he went one better by leaving the summit exclusion zone and showing up after midnight at the Miramar restaurant in Alcudia where he had been told that Swedish journalists were dining.

Amongst the anti-Europeans elected to the European Parliament in the Swedish poll is 59-year-old Jorn Svensson, aformer Communist who has the described the EU as the work of the devil and acapitalist conspiracy.

Chirac is getting rattled by the anti-nuclear test posturings of some of his European colleagues.

Commissioners certainly lead colourful lives.

EUROPEAN leaders begin the complex exercise this weekend of reshaping the Union to meet the challenges of enlargement and to handle the demands of the 21st century.

Far from ushering in a new era of peace and understanding in world agricultural trade, the European Commission’s efforts to put its GATT commitments into practice look set to spark off a series of transatlantic trade disputes in the final months of this year.

Three and a half years after the Maastricht Treaty committed the EU to promoting the creation of a web of trans-European transport, energy and telecommunications networks (TENs), a new committee of the Council of Ministers has just received the green light to hand out the cash.

SUCCESS at the polls for the anti-EU factions in Sweden could backfire on the far-left groups in the European Parliament.