As part of the French presidency of the Council of the European Union the Robert Schuman Foundation has established four media partnerships to speak of Europe with its citizens. It has a partnership with L'express.fr, Autoroute FM, the newspaper of the Saône-et-Loire and Ouest France. Check in for example on this week's topic on Autoroute FM recorded by Robert Schuman Foundation Chairman Jean-Dominique Giuliani who comments on the effects of the Irish "no" to the Lisbon Treaty.

The 27 Culture and Communication Ministers, who met in Versailles on 21st and 22nd July spoke of the four initiatives developed by the French Presidency: enhancing and protecting European heritage; encouraging creation and cultural distribution in the digital age; promoting cultural and linguistic diversity; enhancing the contribution of architecture to sustainable development. They also addressed the revision of the community regulation governing electronic communication (the Telecoms Package) and recalled the need to protect the balance between economic optimisation imperatives and objectives of general interest such as the pluralism of the media, cultural and linguistic diversity and urban development.

On 22nd July the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) published its annual activity report reviewing this year's work within and exterior to the EU. According to the report the volume of information received by the Office has risen continuously, increasing from 529 cases in 2002 to a new record of 886 cases in 2007. At the end of the year OLAF investigated 408 cases in all. In financial terms the European tax payer has again benefited from the work undertaken by OLAF. In 2007 200 million euro were recovered after cases were settled by OLAF. In terms of population the greatest number of cases were in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.

The 27 Foreign Ministers, who met on 22nd and 23rd July said they were pleased with the arrest of Radovan Karadzic in Serbia - he is accused of genocide, crimes against Humanity and war crimes by the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia). They also said they regretted that the people of Zimbabwe had not been able to vote freely during the election on 27th June the result of which the EU deems invalid - they also deplored the acts of intimidation that had occurred. They noted the preparatory work in view of the EU-Ukraine Summit on 9th September in Evian as well as negotiations towards the conclusion of a new enhanced agreement between the EU and the Ukraine. Discussions notably focussed on the title of the future agreement, on its preamble and on the issue of discussions with regard to visas.

During a press conference which she held on 23rd July German Chancellor Angela Merkel drew up a positive panorama of the three years of government by the grand coalition. In September Angela Merkel would like to continue on-going policies such as balancing the State budget by 2011 and implementing new reforms such as that on inheritance tax. She also quoted the implementation of the healthcare reform, the organisation of a summit on education, continuing the integration policy, and even a further reduction in unemployment insurance contributions, if possible. Angela Merkel is continuing budgetary consolidation but shows that she is aware of her citizens' concerns particularly in the face of rising inflation and petrol price rises. This overview came just one year before the German general elections.

On 24th July the three mediators, François-Xavier de Donnéa, Raymont Langendries and Karl-Heinz Lambertz, appointed by the King met with the President-Ministers of the federal entities together with the Belgian Deputy Prime Ministers. This meeting is part of their task to start real dialogue to achieve "a major reform of the State." The content of the debates will not be revealed before the delivery of the mediators' report to the King on 31st July next. All of the parties seem to agree to finding guarantees for dialogue that will be established after the holidays. However the mediators are refusing to say whether this will be an intra-community dialgoue, as requested by the north of the country or a dialogue between the federal entities including the Brussels region - as requested by the French speakers.

Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders met on 25th July in Nicosia to decide whether conditions were favourable to start negotiations to reunify the island which has been divided for the last 34 years. After the meeting the head of the UN mission in Cyprus Taye-Brook Zerihoun announced that the Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders would start talks on 3rd September. The UN's special representative in Cyprus Alexander Downer arrived on the island on 27th July to discuss the talks planned for September with the Greek and Turkish leaders. "Everyone at the UN will their best to help the process which took a major step forwards on Friday," said Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.

The Danish nationalist party (Danish People's Party) is threatening to withdraw its support from the government if the latter relaxes its immigration rules thereby preventing the coalition to stay in power. Although the Danish laws governing family reunification are contrary to European legislation Integration Minister Birthe Rønn Hornbech has said nothing about the issue causing reactions amongst the media as well as the political parties including within her own party, the Liberal Party. Many parties are calling for a close examination of the Danish migration policies to see which are contrary to European legislation, for example the rules surrounding achieving resident status. In addition to this Danish immigration services are under suspicion of not having informed a number of couples about European law.

The Spanish government revealed significantly poor figures in terms of its ecnonomic forecast on 24th July with low growth in 2008 and 2009 and a sharp rise in unemployment and the bad news seems to be accumulating. After several years of high growth rates, which placed it amongst the most dynamic economies in the euro area (3.8% in 2007), since the start of 2008 Spain has been facing a severe slowing associated to the fall of the housing market, the international financial crisis and the rise in oil prices. The government has published its "macro-economic framework" for 2008 and 2009 that forecasts a growth rate of 1.6% of the GDP for this year in comparison with 2.3% in the previous plan, published in April. "Economic decline has been far sharper and quicker than we estimated," said Economy Minister Pedro Solbes after the Council of Ministers meeting; he did however reject the hypothesis of recession (two successive quarters of negative growth).

On 23rd July French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner received his Montenegrin counterpart Milan Rocen. After talks Bernard Kouchner declared that France supported the principle of Montenegro's entry into the EU but hopes that the EU's institutional crisis will be resolved prior to this. Milan Rocen said he was "sure that Europe will find a solution and that we shall all join together in the same family of the European Union." Since its independence from Serbia in May 2006 Montenegro with its 650,000 inhabitants has signed a Stabilisation and Association agreement (October 2007) with the EU, this being the first step towards joining. According to a survey published at the beginning of July in Podgorica, 73% of Montenegrins want to join the EU.

On 21st July French President Nicolas Sarkozy travelled to Ireland where he met Prime Minister, Brian Cowen. This was the French President's first foreign visit as President of the Council of the European Union. Both men notably discussed the Lisbon Treaty and the Irish referendum. Brian Cowen added that many consultations would be organised in Ireland and in other European countries in preparation for the European Council in October. Nicolas Sarkozy indicated that he respected the negative result of the referendum in Ireland but welcomed the fact that the ratification process was continuing in other countries, recalling his commitment to the Lisbon Treaty. The two men also discussed food and oil prices, the common agricultural polciy, the WTO negotiations, climate change and energy security as well as the situation in Chad and Darfur together with the Iranian nuclear programme.

On 23rd July the Italian Senators approved unanimously (286 votes) the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty which still has to be approved by MPs at the end of next week. Italian Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini said that he was "very, very satifisied". He said that the "challenge would start the day the Lisbon Treaty came into force." The autonomist party, the Northern League, Silvio Berlusconi's main ally finally approved the text whereas it had previously demanded that it be approved by referendum. The Robert Schuman Foundation maintains an updated table on its internet site relating the developments in the ratifications per country.

Following the publication of the report by the European Commission with regard to Romania's progress as part of the Co-operation and Verification Mechanism in terms of justice and the fight against corruption, Romanian Prime Minister, Calin Popescu Tariceanu made a declaration on 23rd July. "The criticism in the report helps us to identify solutions and stimulates us to solve the remaining issues in the legal system," he maintained calling for "greater determination" in the face of existing problems. The head of government has however said that the "report reveals a series of positive developments and progress showing that Romania is on the right path."

On 24th July the Swedish government appointed Christian Danielsson as Permanent Representative of Sweden with the EU. He will take office in September replacing Sven-Olaf Petersson appointed Ambassador of Sweden in Australia. Christian Danielsson is presently head of the service for the three candidate countries (Turkey, Macedonia and Croatia) for the European Commission.

On 21st July Radovan Karadzic, former political leader of the Serbs of Bosnia, who had been on the run for the last ten years, was arrested in Belgrade whilst living under a false identity. He will be transferred to the ICTY since he has been accused on eleven counts notably, genocide and crimes against humanity committed during the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of Srebrenica in July 1995. Ratko Mladic, former military leader of the Serbs of Bosnia and Goran Hadzic, former leader of the Serbs of Croatia are still at large.

Barack Obama, Senator of Illinois and the Democrat Party candidate in the American Presidential Election undertook a visit of Europe between 24th and 26th July. In Berlin on 24th July he met German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He delivered an important speech before tens of thousands of people on trans-Atlantic relations in which he requested the new generation of Europeans and Americans to come together to "bring down the walls" between allies, between rich and poor, Christian, Muslim and Jewish countries. He met French President Nicolas Sarkozy on 25th July at the Elysee Palace then they held a joint press conference. Finally he travelled to London on 26th July and held talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, notably with regard to Iraq.

The International Monetary Fund has published a report on the perspectives of the world's economy. This article entitled "IMF Gloomy on Growth, Sees Rising Inflation Threat " forecasts a clear slowing in the world's economy in the second quarter of 2008. Energy price rises and in raw materials has increased inflationary trends, particularly in emerging and developing countries. According to the IMF governments must have monetary discipline to stop inflation especially in emerging countries.

From the beginning of the meeting of the 153 members of the Doha Round negotiations in Geneva on 21st July emphasis was placed on the need to find an agreement in order to stabilise the world's economy. WTO members must come to agreement on the reduction of customs duties on agricultural and non-agricultural products and on the reduction of subsidies to agriculture. After five days of hard discussion WTO Director General, Pascal Lamy submitted estimated proposals to seven members (Australia, Brazil, China, USA, India, Japan and the EU) on the opening of industrial markets. These were favourably received by all including Brazil, who, for the first time, stood apart from India. Discussions are still ongoing with developing countries who want to dismantle the agricultural policies of the rich countries - the latter are requesting in exchange that the emerging countries lower their customs duties on industrial products. The progress made will be submitted on 2nd August to the 153 WTO members where unanimity has to be reached.

According to figures published by Eurostat on 22nd July in 2007, 218.5 million resident persons in the EU aged 15 years or more had a job or a business activity. The total employment rate for people aged 15-64 was 65.4% in 2007, compared with 62.1% in 2000 and 64.5% in 2006. The employment rate for women was 58.3% in 2007, up from 53.6% in 2000 and 57.3% in 2006, and the rate for older people, i.e. those aged 55-64, was 44.7%, also up from 36.8% in 2000 and 43.5% in 2006. In 2007, the employment rate for persons aged 15-64 was above 70% in Denmark (77.1%), the Netherlands (76.0%), Sweden (74.2%), Austria (71.4%), the United Kingdom (71.3%), Cyprus (71.0%) and Finland (70.3%). It was below 60% in Malta (55.7%), Poland (57.0%), Hungary (57.3%), Italy (58.7%) and Romania (58.8%). Denmark (73.2%), Sweden (71.8%), the Netherlands (69.6%) and Finland (68.5%) registered the highest rates of female employment in 2007 while Malta (36.9%), Italy (46.6%) and Greece (47.9%) had the lowest.

A Eurobarometer study on the "introduction of the euro in the new Member States" reveals that 53% of the citizens in the new States not in the euro area have already used euro notes and 47% the coins. Although most of the population (65%) believe that their respective countries are free to choose to join the euro or not, only 3% believe that their country will never adopt the euro. In addition to this 42% of those interviewed feel they are not well informed about the euro and only 6% think they are well informed. Although 50% of the population of the new Member States expects major benefits if they enter the euro zone, 37% have negative opinions. Finally 47% say they would be pleased at possibly joining the euro area in comparison with 37% who would not.

The Centre for European Reform has published a paper entitled "The CER Guide to the French Presidency." Whilst focussing on some of the French Presidency's priorities such as immigration, energy and defence policies the authors present the context and challenges of this presidency. Finally some of the paper also looks into the chances of success on the part of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The latest issue of the review "Defence" has just been published by the auditors' association at the IHEDN. It includes an interview with Valérie Pécresse, French Minister for Research and Higher Education, on universities as well as a special feature on European Defence.

Between 23rd July and 23rd August the Bregenz Festival is offering a series of concerts, recitals and operas on a floating stage on Lake Constance. You will be able to attend the operas of Tosca, Puccini and Charles V of Krenek.