A confidential report drafted by the Court of Auditors confirms the claims made by former European Commission chief accountant Marta Andreasen, who was sacked after having revealed that the Commission's accounting ...

The leader of the European Liberals in the European Parliament Graham Watson said on Tuesday that European Union countries should be given the right to withdraw from the EU. Speaking to a Federal Trust conference in ...

The European Commission supports a VAT reduction on restaurant services, discs, and cultural products presently subject to the normal European tax, to allow the EU states to evolve between levels of 15 to 25 percent, it ...

The president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, denies that the French institutional system, with a president in charge of external relations and the Commission's head as a prime minister is a suitable model for ...

The six founding members of the European Union will kick off a common reflection on the future of Europe, it has emerged after a meeting between French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Belgian prime minister Guy ...

The socialist members of the Convention on the future of Europe call for giving the European Parliament the power to elect the president of the European commission and for extending the control of the Parliament over ...

Europeans and Americans vowed to step up their co-operation to fight terrorism, despite divergent approaches as to the alledged terrorists that risk the death penalty in the US, at an unprecedented working meeting of ...

Chairman of the Convention on the future of the EU, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, is calling for a single text for a European Constitution, and not for two Treaties, one with constitutional content and a second with more ...

The European conservative leaders are set to accept that the proposal for a president of the European Union is not ripe yet, after a controversial debate on reforms of EU institutions, in Sardinia, last Monday. Sources ...

The chairman of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, Hans Gert Pöttering, is against the idea of a president of the European Union and believes any compromise on a future European Union based on the ...

The EU Commission’s Internal Audit Service, (IAS) pointed to serious budget control problems before the chief accountant of the EU Commission, Marta Andreasen, was removed from office in response to her criticism of the ...

The European Union and the United States’ authorities are to take stock at the end of the week of progress achieved on negotiating an agreement on judicial co-operation with a view to sharing intelligence and combating ...

On 11 September 2001, the day when terrorist attacks killed three thousand people, destroyed the proud symbols of New York and hit the Pentagon, the most powerful nation on earth realised it was as vulnerable as any ...

The European conservative leaders conceive that the power in the future European Union could be shared between an EU president in charge of external relations and the president of the European Commission who would act ...

European Christian democrats have moved forward towards their ambition of influencing future EU reforms by unveiling a draft Constitution of the European Union, which they will table to the European Convention. The ...

European commissioner in charge of administrative reforms, Neil Kinnock, on Monday amplified the row between the European Parliament and the Commission over the accounting scandal, sparked after he sacked the Commission ...

Members of the powerful budgetary control committee of the European Parliament accused Monday the Commission of seeking to undermine the actions of the European Union’s anti fraud office, OLAF, by proposing a reduction ...

Seven conservative prime ministers gather today in Sardinia, at Silvio’s Berlusconi residence, to decide on the crucial points of a European constitution that conservatives across Europe intend to table to the ...

The scandal over the sacking of the European Commission's former chief accountant Marta Andreasen, after she unveiled irregularities in the Commission’s accounting system, will on Monday take the foreground when ...

Next week will be dominated by debates on the future of the European Union, with conservative prime ministers discussing a draft European Constitution in Sardinia and the Convention debating at the end of the week ways ...

Finance ministers of the 12 countries Eurozone strongly defended on Friday the necessity to respect the rules of the Stability Pact, despite the stalling growth which complicates the fight of France, Germany and Italy ...

Four prime ministers, the Spanish royal family, magnates of finance, media tycoons, top models, and Spain’s political elite attended the thousand-people wedding of Ana Aznar, the daughter of Spanish prime minister José ...

One year after the terrorist attacks of September 11 in the United States, the European Union is preparing to commemorate the events which killed thousands of citizens in New York and Washington and kicked off an ...

Christian-democrat leaders of the European Union will on Monday meet in Sardinia to debate the broad lines of a European constitution. The proposal, which conservatives across Europe intend to put forward to the ...

The leaders of the European Parliament gave on Wednesday the green light for a project on opening the House to observers from the candidate countries. This would make the Parliament the first EU institution to be ...

The national parliaments and the European parliament should have more influence on preparing reforms of the European Union in the future. They should be involved in the procedure of revising the treaties, not only in ...

Members of the European Parliament called on Wednesday for a united voice of Europe on the Iraq issue and warned against unilateral action of the United States against Baghdad. MEPs almost unanimously agreed that a ...

The European Parliament backed on Tuesday ambitious plans to cut packaging waste, increasing the minimum recycling target by weight for packaging materials waste from 55 percent proposed by the European Commission to 65 ...

The European Union moved closer towards tackling the air traffic congestion with the European Parliament's decision, on Tuesday to back plans to unify air traffic control. Members of the European Parliament adopted in ...

The European Christian Democrats will unveil by the end of the week the text of a European constitution the conservatives across Europe intend to table to the Convention on the future of the EU. German member of the ...

Members of the European Parliament suspect Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, president of the Convention on EU future, of taking too much interest in the American institutional system, with a view to introducing it in the ...

The Spanish internal controversy around the secessionist Basque party Batasuna reached the European Parliament, as the only Euro parliamentarian representing Batasuna in the European Parliament, Koldo Gorostiaga, is ...

The president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, has been urged to respect the mandate of the European Parliament, which alone has the competence of deciding on changes on the European Commission's term. The ...

Romania found itself caught in the crossfire between the European Union and the United States on the campaign by Washington to exempt its citizens from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. Romania, an ...

Immigration has become the top priority and the leading electoral theme in the European Union, amid recent raising success of far right anti immigration parties across Europe. However, statistics show the EU’s ...

A broad opposition against US plans to attack Iraq emerges in Europe, with French and German leaders rejecting a military action, and Britain becoming more cautious. An opinion poll unveiled on Monday that a majority of ...

The European Commissioners may see their salaries for 2003 blocked, unless they act to crack down on fraud and mismanagement of the EU’s 90 billion Euro budget and halt the disciplinary procedure against a civil servant ...

British prime minister Tony Blair is the best paid head of government in the European Union, with 22,800 euro per month, as opposed to Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who earns 15,000 euro. According to Le Monde ...

The European Commission was on Thursday under fire for alleged attempts to cover up irregularities in its accounting control, unveiled by former chief accountant Marta Andreasen, who was sacked four months after having ...

The United States would start taking decisions on its own, and ignore NATO, if the European allies do not step up their defence spending and upgrade their capabilities the secretary general of NATO George Robertson ...

Leaders of France and Germany pledged on Tuesday to solve, before December, their rift over reforms of the EU’s farm policy, in order to de block crucial talks on enlarging the European Union, currently stalled over ...

The Irish government has stepped up a campaign to convince EU and candidate countries that it is doing all it can to achieve a successful ratification of the Nice Treaty in a second referendum, to be organised in ...

The European Commission on Monday denied talks on delaying enlargement, after reports in the press unveiled the commissioners discussed, at their last meeting before the summer break, last Wednesday, the risks of ...

The European Union will live this week the last moments before the summer break, and the EU institutions prepare for a low key August. On Monday and Tuesday, the candidate countries will negotiate closure of chapters, ...

German Conservatives have pledged that Berlin will play a bigger role in Europe and on the world stage if they win September’s general elections. They have also claimed that they will stop the confrontational posture ...

Human rights watchdog Statewatch has warned that a proposal by the Danish presidency of the European Union on investigation and prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity violates the rights of asylum seekers ...

Leading EU politicians clash over powers to be given to national parliaments to ensure that the EU institutions do not exceed their competencies, after British minister for Europe Peter Hain proposed that a watchdog be ...

The EU Foreign Affairs Ministers on Monday adopted changes in the working methods of the Council agreed upon in Seville, aiming at streamlining and opening up the highly criticised Council of Ministers. The ministers ...

The chairman of the Convention on EU future Valéry Giscard d'Estaing calls for a new EU body regrouping national parliamentarians and members of the European Parliament to hold discussions on the strategic orientation ...