French President Jacques Chirac was scheduled Tuesday to present the results of France's six-month stewardship of the European Union to the European Parliament, the assembly of the 15 EU member-states. The highlight of France's presidency of the EU was the marathon summit in the French Riviera city of Nice last weekend.
Reforms passed at the Nice gathering that ended in the pre-dawn hours Monday cleared the way for the European Union's historic eastward expansion.
Chirac said on Monday Nice would "remain in history as a great summit because of the scope and complexity of the problems it had settled."
The EU expansion will take a decade or more, change the shape of the continent, and finally heal the wounds of the long Cold War.
In the longest summit in the EU's 43-year history the heads of state and government came up with reforms that should make the expansion work without gridlock or paralysis.
Addressing the Strasbourg assembly in July at the start of France's term of office in the rotating EU presidency, Chirac outlined his country's priorities as reform of EU institutions, greater attention to food safety because of mad cow disease, and greater maritime safety following the sinking of an oil tanker, the Erika, off the French coast last December with serious environmental effects.
"I am convinced that in six months' time when I return here to present he results to you, Europe will no longer be entirely the same," he told deputies.
"We will have consolidated its edifice by making it more welcoming both to those inside it, and those wishing to enter."
His spokeswoman noted at the time that the results of the six-month presidency were usually presented to the European Parliament by the foreign minister.
But she stressed that Chirac wished personally to demonstrate France's will to make its relations with the Parliament as auspicious as possible -- PARIS (AFP)
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