Tag: Greek EU Presidency

US-made Patriot missiles and high-sensitivity security detectors are part of security plans costing 1.2bn euros, the most ever spent for an Olympics. The games start on 13 August.

Greece's newly appointed Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis has said that solving the Cyprus problem is his top priority.

After the defeat of the socialists in the Greek elections Commissioner Diamantopoulou will be replaced by Stavros Dimas of the winning conservative party.

Greek elections: Socialists are trying to spread doubts about the Conservatives' support for continued rapprochement with Turkey.

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou has received over a million votes supporting his bid to become leader of the ruling Socialist Party.

On 1 July, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) has released its verdict on the results of the Greek Presidency in the environmental field based on its ten green tests.

The Greek Presidency is expected to make important progress on four issues: the reinvigoration of the European Research Area, the "Erasmus World" and e-learning programmes and the promotion of benchmarks for education.

Greece, set to take over the rotating presidency of the European Union, vowed on 18 December to boost the Union's international presence, reinvigorate its economy and improve its immigration policy.

The Greek government has announced that Greece will continue blocking any proposals allowing non-member Turkey to have a say in EU defence policy.

The European Parliament adopted a resolution that supports the decisions to set up an EU police mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the first EU peace-keeping mission in Macedonia.

With a majority of 253 votes, the Greek Parliament approved the ratification of the Nice Treaty on Wednesday 20 March 2002.

The leaders of the Cypriot Greeks and Turks met meeting on 16 January to discuss the future of the island, divided between the Greeks and Turks for the last 28 years. The two leaders revived their talks in December, encouraged by the prospect of Cyprus' membership of the EU.

The Greek and the Turkish leaders of the divided island of Cyprus agreed to continue talks to end the division of the island before it joins the European Union. The breakthrough in talks between the Greek Cypriot leader Glafcos Clerides and the Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash was reached during their first meeting in four years on 4 December in Nicosia. The two leaders agreed there would be no preconditions in future talks.

The Cyprus Permanent Representative to the EU, Theophilos Theophilou, said that Cyprus could block Turkey's bid to join the Union in the future if a political solution on the divided island is not reached. Mr Theophilou told the Financial Times newspaper on 18 July that if no agreement is reached by the time Cyprus joins, Turkish Cypriots will be deprived of the benefits of EU membership and Cyprus will have a veto over accession of Turkey to the EU.

For the first time ever, the European Court of Justice has fined a member state for failure to respect EU legislation.