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Our future energy supply and climate change have become such
preoccupations that the EU's sustainable energy week is to become an
annual event.
From 28 January – 1 February, the week will bring together European institutions, civil society and players on the energy the market. In the wake of the Bali conference, participants will take stock of the last twelve months and review recent political developments, particularly in the context of the adoption of the new package on energy and climate change.
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Log on and sign in to the new Debate Europe website to express your views and interact live with EU commissioners on 29 January.
Is the EU going in the right direction? Does it make a difference where it really counts? Is it being overly meddlesome in trivial areas and not intervening enough in others?
Whatever your opinion, you can sign in and have your say when the new interactive Debate Europe website goes live on 29 January.
Commissioners Stavros Dimas (environment), Andris Piebalgs (energy) and Margot Wallström (communication) and other commission staff will be online between 15.00 and 17.00 (Central European Time) to launch the debate and field your comments.
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Janez Janša, Prime Minister of Slovenia and President of the EU Council, set out the policy priorities of his country's presidency in an address on Wednesday to MEPs. As Parliament's President Hans-Gert Pöttering pointed out, this was the first time that one of the central European countries who had joined the EU in 2004 was holding the presidency.
Mr Janša told the House of a time in 1988 when he was arrested for criticising the then Yugoslav regime, and how the popular protests which had ensued had "set in motion the beginnings of change". Now he stood before European Parliament as Prime Minister of Slovenia and President of the European Council. "If anyone had predicted such a possibility twenty years ago in my prison cell, I would not have believed one word of it", he said.
Turning to the priorities of his country's presidency over the coming six months, he highlighted the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, saying "We hope that by the end of the Slovenian Presidency, the majority of the Member States will have followed in Hungary's footsteps. The Slovenian Parliament will decide on ratification before the end of this month. The goal is to have the Lisbon Treaty enter into force on 1 January 2009".
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This year, the EU's 50th, the top ten achievements include leading the fight against climate change and the treaty of Lisbon.
We often don't realise the many ways in which the EU helps to improve our lives. This year's Top Ten gives a glimpse of how our concerns - as citizens, consumers, workers – are the real focus of the Union's everyday activities.
Most recently, EU leaders adopted the treaty of Lisbon to make the 27-nation Union more efficient and more democratic, giving greater powers to the European parliament and ensuring that national parliaments have a greater say in EU policy making.
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The new European treaty was signed on 13 December 2007 by the Heads of State or Government of the 27 Member States in the Portuguese capital. "The idea that motivates us in this ceremony for the signature is quite simple: to advance the European project," declared José Sócrates, the Prime Minister of Portugal and President of the European Council. "It is a Treaty for the construction of a more modern, efficient and democratic Europe," stressed Mr Sócrates.
