EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki announced on Wednesday (16 April) their intention to develop an energy security partnership between Iraq and the European Union.

"We want to establish an energy security partnership, which will benefit both European consumers and Iraq's economy," president Barroso told reporters in Brussels after a meeting with Mr al-Maliki

Mr Barroso said that negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement were also "progressing very well". The EU and Iraq would sign a memorandum of understanding on energy security in the coming weeks, he added.

In return, the Iraqi prime minister had his own requests of Europe: "We need more effort to reconstruct our country and for this reconstruction. We need the aid of our European friends."

"We want to promote these relations based on mutual interest - be they in energy or other areas," he said.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - As the European Union fine-tunes a negotiating mandate for its long-delayed partnership talks with Russia, Moscow has urged the 27-nation bloc to grow up and avoid sacrificing mutually-beneficial ties in favour of individual states' interests.

"We are not pushing, we are not pressing, we are not in a hurry. If the EU needs to mature, as it obviously does, then so be it. We want the treaty as much, or as little, as the EU does," Russian ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said on Tuesday (15 April).

Speaking to Brussels-based journalists, Mr Chizhov warned against the negotiation process becoming "hostage to certain interests of individual member states of the EU, pursuing their own agenda that have little or nothing to do with the EU-Russia relations".

The 27-nation bloc is in the final phase of drafting the negotiating mandate - something that outlines precisely what the European Commission's manoeuvring space will be during the EU-Russia talks.

An internal French report on how Paris is performing in implementing economic reforms, included the EU's Lisbon agenda, shows France is lagging behind but also claims that the whole policy package should be radically revised, French media reported on Wednesday (16 April).

The author of the report, economist and lawyer Laurent Cohen-Tanugi was appointed in October 2007 by the country's economy minister Christine Lagarde to look into the issue of Europe and its economic development in the context of globalisation.

The Lisbon agenda dates back to 2000 when it was adopted by EU leaders, also partially as a response to globalisation. It aims to make the European economy the most competitive in the world. The ambitious goal was originally set for 2010 but at the half-way stage, the deadline was dropped.

Aimed at boosting Europe's economic performance, the Lisbon agenda includes a list of concrete policy objectives, mainly focusing on more jobs as well as higher investment in education and research.

The EU's foreign policy chief expressed concern after Russia decided to intensify its links to two separatist regions in Georgia. NATO's secretary general called on Moscow to reverse the measures.

"We are concerned about these unilateral decisions, we have always supported Georgia's territorial integrity," said Christina Gallach, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana's spokeswoman, on Wednesday, April 16.

 

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer went further, calling on Russia to roll back its plans.

 

"I am deeply concerned by the actions Russia has taken to establish legal links with the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia," de Hoop Scheffer said in a statement. "I urge the Russian Federation to reverse these measures, and call on the Georgian authorities to continue to show restraint," he added.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU candidate country Croatia has not been doing enough to bring to justice all those who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the 1991 - 1995 war that pitted the newly independent country against the Yugoslav People's Army, leading human rights NGO Amnesty International has said.

On Tuesday (15 April) the organisation called on the EU to play a more active role to ensure that this issue is tackled and that all war criminals are brought to justice, regardless of their ethnicity.

Among other things, Amnesty is calling on the EU to press Croatia's government "to actively pursue the investigation and prosecution of war crimes, provide assistance for the necessary judicial reforms and continue to monitor the situation beyond the conclusion of accession talks."

During the four-year long war - known as the Croatian war of independence - ethnic-based war crimes were committed by both Serbs and Croats in the country.

In Germany, Islam is often equated with fundamentalism and fanaticism, a perception that imposes a heavy burden on the country's 3 million Muslims. Their relationship to Western society is divided between integration and sometimes self-imposed exclusion.

 Friday prayers: Hamburg's central mosque in the St. Georg neighborhood is the most important gathering place for the city's estimated 130,000 Muslims.

The name of the salon is German -- Goldene Finger (Golden Fingers) -- but the services it offers are listed in the window in Arabic and Turkish. In the front of the shop, 40-year-old Palestinian Toufic al-Rifae gives men haircuts and trims their beards. Veiled women disappear into a back section behind a curtain, where female hairdressers do their hair and, using thick lines of the traditional Middle Eastern cosmetic preparation known as kohl, apply their makeup in the Arab style.

BERLIN: Germany will appeal to other European Union countries this week to take in more Christians from Iraq and attempt to reach a common policy toward Iraqi refugees, officials said Wednesday.

The government here is already considering granting Christians preferential treatment over other religions and groups. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble stated his intention to open Germany's doors to Iraqi Christians during interviews last weekend and expects full agreement Thursday when interior ministers from the 16 states meet near Berlin.

The issue will also be discussed Friday by EU interior ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg.

Schäuble's position has been welcomed by Christian churches, which have expressed alarm at sectarian violence, the bombing of churches and execution of clergymen.

But the opposition Green Party has criticized Schäuble's plan. Though it partly endorsed it, the Greens said it would be hypocritical to open the doors to one group at the expense of another because so many civilians are suffering.

The price of farmland is rising at its fastest rate for more than 30 years as wealthy city dwellers and overseas buyers seek a slice of idyllic rural England and jittery investors rush to move their money out of stocks and shares because of the global credit crunch.

In contrast to falling residential and commercial property values, the average price of farmland rose by more than 10 per cent in the first quarter of 2008, according to a study of agricultural property sales which will be published this month. Arable land, in particular, has become so profitable that its average price has soared from £4,000 an acre in January last year to £5,500 an acre today.

"So far this year, we have seen some of the same trends we saw last year but at an even more accelerated pace," said Andrew Shirley, head of rural land research at the Knight Frank estate agency, which conducted the study. "We have seen farms in Kent and Dorset sell for more than £6,000 an acre and another batch in the North-west go for £5,000. This time last year, the same farms might have fetched £3,500 per acre - that is nearly a 75 per cent increase in some areas."

According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the value of farmland rose by 28 per cent during the second half of 2007. The last time agricultural property prices increased at such a rate was during the late 1970s, when annual increases of 40 per cent were common. Knight Frank believes prices will continue to rise by between 10 and 20 per cent this year.

The human rights organization Amnesty International denounced the European Union's policies on asylum-seekers, calling them a lottery for the right to stay in what it has described as Fortress Europe.

"Fortress Europe ... is a reality," Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary general, said during a press conference in Brussels after talks with EU officials on Tuesday, April 15.

 

"Access to Europe is very difficult and the initial border of the European Union is being pushed further and further away," she said, pointing to the rescue operations of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, patrols in Senegal and increasing EU cooperation with transit countries.