A decade of the euro was marked in Tuesday's Strasbourg session as MEPs and leading economic experts debated future challenges to the euro and its much publicised 10 year history.
A decade of the euro was marked in Tuesday's Strasbourg session as MEPs and leading economic experts debated future challenges to the euro and its much publicised 10 year history. Later, Latvia's President Valdis Zatlers addressed the House and spoke of the changes his country has seen since joining the European Union in 2004. New biometric passports were also later debated.
A decade of the euro
To mark a decade of the European single currency a whole host of European figures attended Strasbourg to address the Chamber.
EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering called the common currency “a bastion of economic stability”. The President of the European Central Bank Jean Claude Trichet said the euro had given Europe “price stability” and that it protected “incomes and savings”.
Latvia's President
Latvia's President Valdis Zatlers spoke of Latvia's accession into the European Union and NATO, changes the country had seen since independence in 1918 and also the financial crisis and Latvia's economy.
He also thanked the European Parliament for its official commemoration of the victims of Stalinism and Nazism.
New biometric passports debated
In June, 30 European countries will be required to issue passports with fingerprints and facial recognition software. The man who has drafted Parliament's report on the new measure - Portuguese MEP Carlos Coelho - said in Tuesday's debate that “there is real concern in the EP to fight trafficking of human beings and especially children – this is the main aim of this instrument”.
MEPs also debated an own initiative report by Italian MEP Marco Cappato that says that “accessing information relating to the EU institutions still remains an obstacle-strewn path for ordinary citizens”.
MEPs seal the deal on pesticides
MEPs backed overwhelmingly an agreement reached with the Council in December on the new EU pesticides legislation. The two new laws will increase the number of pesticides available on the market, while progressively banning the use of a number of dangerous chemicals in these products, and ensure the safer use of pesticides. In order to enter into force, laws still require a formal adoption by Member States' ministers at the Council.
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