The decision to draft contingency plans for the former Soviet states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania was taken secretly earlier this year at the urging of the United States and Germany at NATO headquarters, ending years of division within the alliance over how to view Russia, the Guardian said.

The debate took place at a Commission restaurant on Tuesday (30 November) evening and gathered stakeholders from industry, civil society and the European institutions.

The gathering was organised by the Brussels branch of the association Défense de la Langue Française, whose specific aim is to maintain linguistic diversity in the EU and its institutions. The title of the debate was "Des langues pour gagner des marchés" – or "Languages to gain markets".

Multilingualism as an asset

The sensitive issue of maternity leave was on the agenda of ministers from the EU's 27 member states meeting in Brussels for the Employment and Social Affairs Council.

The meeting provided the first opportunity for ministers to discuss a European Parliament position on maternity leave, adopted on 20 October.

Conclusions adopted by an Energy Council last week commit EU member states to put into practice provisions laid down in the Third Energy Package, agreed in 2009.

Under the package, consumers were meant to be able to obtain information on their energy consumption and rights, enforced by an energy ombudsman.

At the two-week summit, which involves 193 nations, delegates are looking for ways to curb carbon emissions blamed for global warming once limits agreed in the 1997 Kyoto treaty expire in 2012.

After failing to reach a legally-binding agreement last year, the UN scaled back ambitions for this meeting, focusing on agreeing regulations to protect forests, verify emissions cuts and channel up to $100 billion a year in climate aid to developing nations.

Eastern Europe has experienced its worst economic recession since the Second World War, forcing EU countries such as Hungary, Latvia and Romania to request international assistance.

In 2008 and 2009, many Western investors were forced to scale back plans to develop business in the East, pushing down Poland's zloty, Hungary's forint and Romania's leu.

But these difficult times now seem to be over.

At today's meeting in Brussels, finance ministers will be taking stock of the stark warning sent by a high-level EU group on how haphazard taxes on banks in different countries could be potentially damaging to the sector and the EU market as a whole.

The ministerial meeting will also give a final blessing to an EU/IMF loan for Ireland's troubled economy and prepare discussions for a EU leaders summit next week, which will focus on plans for a permanent EU loan facility. 

Double taxation warning

The Prague seminar, hosted by the Czech Association for International Affairs and the Polish Institute of International Affairs, focused on Poland's priorities for its upcoming EU presidency in the second half of 2011, one of which is the Eastern Partnership.

The Eastern Partnership, ceremonially launched in Prague during the Czech EU Presidency in the second half of 2009, aims to develop a specific Eastern dimension to the European Neighbourhood Policy and concerns relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

The ministers took no extra action to quell the eurozone debt crisis at the meeting, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking in Berlin, rebuffed calls for a bigger financial safety net or joint euro bonds.

"We don't have any new decision to announce to you," Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the Eurogroup countries, said after the five-hour meeting, adding that the idea of eurozone bonds was not raised.

On a trip rich in symbolism, President Dmitry Medvedev promised to cooperate with Poland to investigate a plane crash in Russia that killed Poland's president in April. He also confirmed his readiness to work with NATO on missile defence.

"There are big energy projects in Poland with regard to privatisation that would be of interest to Russian entities," Medvedev told a joint news conference with Poland's President Bronislaw Komorowski.