Each senior representative shall liaise with all relevant authorities and, where applicable, the social partners and other relevant actors, regarding the activities of the Platform and shall coordinate their participation at the meetings of the Platform and/or their contribution to the activities of the Platform or of its working groups.

Here in the front row I see Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, and our esteemed High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Mr Solana, who often have to go round cap in hand to raise money for vital peace missions, and all because we have not had the courage to discuss these matters sufficiently.

What we are trying to do from the outset, at least as far as my fund is concerned, is to ensure that there is a senior official in the departments set up in the candidate countries for the Social Fund who is trained and instructed in Brussels from the outset, so that Social Fund planning takes account of mainstreaming right from the start.

What we are trying to do from the outset, at least as far as my fund is concerned, is to ensure that there is a senior official in the departments set up in the candidate countries for the Social Fund who is trained and instructed in Brussels from the outset, so that Social Fund planning takes account of mainstreaming right from the start.

Even where it is globalisation or new forms of competition, which actually have no direct connection with the European Union, that are bringing this situation about, and threatening people’s living conditions, it is often the European Union that is blamed, and that is why we must do everything in our power to really make a success of Lisbon, so that the people can identify with the European model.

At the same time, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has condemned laws passed by the Danish and Italian Governments that call into question the right to live as a family by limiting family reunification, the right to love the person of one’s choice by attacking mixed marriages and that even seek to limit the number of asylum applicants. Furthermore, France – my own country, as it happens – which has traditionally defended human rights, has just voted a Jean-Marie Le Pen through to the second round of the presidential elections, a politician who has used the subject of immigrants and asylum applicants for his own gains.