He will know that we have had quite a lot of discussion among all House leaders at our weekly meeting and in meetings subsequent to that to look at the schedule moving forward to ensure there is ongoing consultation, communication and co-operation among all parties as we try to get the budget bill passed as quickly as possible and get this much needed stimulus to Canadians and Canadian families that need it.

The second is the meeting of the main economies on 27 and 28 September in Washington, at which the European Union expects to make an important contribution to moving forward the international process within the United Nations.

the European Communities must remain united on the WTO negotiations; bilateral meetings had been held in Geneva since the beginning of the year with certain WTO partners in order to seek for common ground on sensitive products and to build up alliances; the offensive interests of the Community in Agriculture remain domestic supports and export refunds; she agreed with the Netherlands delegation to discuss the phasing out of the export refunds on their overall budgetary value rather than on their volume; the Commission will not table any new offer on agriculture following the last offer issued on 28 October 2005; she made clear in re ...[+++]ference to remarks raised by the French delegation, that this offer was within the mandate granted by the Council to the Commission for the negotiations at the WTO, and that Geographical Indications were still being discussed; in response to a question raised by the Polish delegation, she also stated that the special safeguard clause was not to be given up; the importance of pursuing non-trade concerns, including those on Geographical Indications; despite a complicated schedule, the principle remained that "nothing could be agreed until everything is agreed"; The Commissioner undertook to keep the Council fully informed of the state of play on WTO negotiations and to report to the next Council meeting on 20th March in the light of the planned G6 Ministerial meeting to be held in London in the beginning of March.

We propose supporting regional representations, which is already being done, specifically for the ACP countries, but we feel that we need to go further; we need to establish internal transparency; until all members have a representation, we must allow non-resident countries to have rapid access to records of meetings and draft agreements; we must establish clear rules on so-called ‘informal’ consultations to allow all countries that wish to take part to do so, by publishing agendas in advance and by ensuring that reports of prior d ...[+++]ecisions, which are sometimes prepared, are provided to the competent bodies in good time.

So far as empowering managers is concerned, the best instance we can give is that from May 1 we inaugurated the new internal audit service, the central financial service and we will shortly be having the first meeting of the Audit Progress Committee.

At its weekly meeting, the Commission expressed its concern for the persons displaced and made refugees by the internal unrest in Iraq.