the EEAS should be divided into a number of directorates, each of which would be responsible for a geostrategically important field of the Union's external relations, and further directorates for security and defence policy issues, civilian crisis management, multilateral and horizontal affairs including human rights and administrative matters;

I also think it very important that we should, in working for the cultural diversity of Europe, consider more than just the 2007 culture programme and understand this as a real horizontal task and as a network policy including also agricultural policy and structural policy, that we should make use of the various programmes such as URBAN, LEADER, and INTERREG, since it has to be made clear that this is not only an important task in terms of cultural policy, it also has to do with preparing people to do jobs – as restaurateurs, for example – and with new developments in rural areas.

The communication, as I said earlier, also focussed on the issue of horizontal policies relating to people with disabilities, in other words incorporation into all individual policies.

Starting from the screening of horizontal policies in terms of their concrete implications for specific industrial sectors, this approach enables the identification of the policies most relevant for each sector.

It is extremely difficult, in just one monthly meeting, to take decisions on all the issues relating to EU external policy, including those on security policy, on maintaining the single institutional framework of the European Union and all the horizontal and institutional issues, such as, for example, the recent regulation on access to documents or the coordination of the EU response to the tragic events of 11 September, as well as coordinating sectoral policies.

It concluded "that the regional dimension of cohesion policy should be strengthened" and that regional policy should "be considered as a horizontal policy with a bearing on all Community activities".