The Czech government launched new web page of the EU Presidency that starts on January 1st of the following year. The Czech government’s main motto for its EU Presidency is "Europe without Barriers" – a reference to competitiveness, the four freedoms and liberal trade policy. Other priorities include sustainable and safe energy, the revision of the EU budget and the Common agricultural Policy, transatlantic relations, enlargement to include the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and progress in the areas of freedom, justice and security.
Development cooperation is not a key priority. But the 18-month programme drafted with the French and Swedish governments does call for work between now and the end of 2009 on: EU development policies and coherence, in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015; aid effectiveness, by implementing the Paris Declaration by the end of 2010; and negotiating and implementing Economic Partnership Agreements in Africa. It also calls for the following processes to be driven forward: enlargement and the Union for the Mediterranean; the implementation of a Common European Asylum System by 2010; the development of a comprehensive EU migration policy and the recognition of the positive link between migration and development; and, finally, ensuring that development aid takes the impact of climate change into account.
New EU Presidency web page will be fully operational from January 1st 2009. Click here to visit the page.
