Dan Neville
Ceist:436 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the schedule of EU ministerial summits and conferences; and the locations of each during the Irish Presidency of the European Union in 2004. [20158/03]
Written Answers. - EU Presidency.
The draft calendar of Council meetings which will be held in Brussels and Luxembourg during our Presidency has been circulated to our EU partners and a copy placed in the Oireachtas Library last week. The two scheduled European Council meetings will be held in Brussels.
As far as meetings in Ireland are concerned, I will be hosting an informal EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Tullamore on 16-17 April 2004. Six other informal ministerial meetings as well as other high level conferences will also be held in Ireland during the Presidency and I have arranged that a calendar of such high level meetings, giving details of dates and locations, be deposited in the Oireachtas Library and kept regularly updated.
On the external side I envisage that we will hold five summits during our Presidency in the first half of 2004. The EU-US summit and the EU-Canada summit are likely to be hosted by the Taoiseach in Dublin. We are currently discussing suitable dates with the US and with Canada for these summits and it appears likely that they will take place in the May-June 2004 period. The Taoiseach will also co-host the EU-Latin America and Caribbean summit with Mexican President Vicente Fox which will take place in Mexico on 28-29 May 2004. An EU-Russia and an EU-Japan Summit are also expected to take place during our Presidency in Moscow and Tokyo, respectively.
We also have a broad range of commitments as regards political dialogue at foreign ministerial level. I expect to meet my counterparts from the US, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, China, Japan and Turkey among others.
In addition, I will host a meeting of ASEM Foreign Ministers, which brings together EU ministers with ten of their Asian counterparts, in April in Ireland and an informal Euromed foreign ministerial, which provides an opportunity for dialogue between EU foreign ministers and their Mediterranean counterparts, on 6-7 May 2004 in Dublin Castle.