EUReview & Call to Prayer (EURCP)

 

Our primary purpose is not to advocate issues, but a call to prayer about issues - issues that might impact the Christian community of Europe, and the rest of the world.  As the EU government agencies begin to define the rule of law for the new Europe, only through prayer and involvement, can the Christians act effectively for their governing legislation and policies.

 

The EU is at a pause or a new beginning. Our one comment is that Europeans have demonstrated a need to know more about what the issues are and what the recommendations are. This may take some time and some discussions between east and west Europe. Also much praying by European Christians. This is good. We will try to provide help with this information. Some possible developments in UK, Germany and France may have positive impact on the future. Let us join in prayer that the following information for prayer will help make this possible. 

 

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15 July 2005, EUReview & Call to Prayer Ministries – Hugh E. and Norma Jenson Davis

 

 

Information from these ARTICLES with some with links [in FR and DE included] and prayer requests

Analysis: London bombers strengthen Blair [CNN]

Luxembourg Leader Hopes EU Charter Revived [AP]

Juncker in blistering attack on Blair [EUObserver]

Blair Casts Himself As EU Reformer [AP]

“Marriage" Resolution Seen as Threat to Religious Freedom [ZENT]

Summit: two visions of Europe provoke deep crisis [EUrActiv]

Blair sees way out of EU budget impasse [EurActiv]

The book that shaped Europe [YWAM]

The European Evangelical Alliance Creates Task Force [The Christian Post]

How is the Commission's work organised? [EUROPA]

 

The Word to pray [1 Timothy 2: 1 "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence." [Prayers that implement God’s Word]. John 15: 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who ABIDES in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.  If you ABIDE in Me, and My Words ABIDE in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” [The conditions for freedom] 2Chronicles 7:14” if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”;also Psalms 9:11-19 and 10:12-18

 

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Analysis: London bombers strengthen Blair

By Robin Oakley CNN European Political Editor

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/10/britain.oakley/index.html

Sunday, July 10, 2005 Posted: 1925 GMT (0325 HKT)

Bombings dominated Friday's papers but Blair managed to keep G8 summit on track.SPECIAL REPORT

 

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The terrorist attacks on London could have wrecked one of the pinnacles of Tony Blair's career -- his ambitious attempt as chairman of the G8 nations to secure a major step-change in aid for Africa and to get the G8 nations to commit together to a new wave of action to reduce global warming.

[SEE LINK FOR FULL ARTICLE – SECOND EXCEPRT BELOW]

 

But what effect will the London bombings have on the wider European scene?

 

The European leaders who were not at Gleneagles have been swift to signal their support and solidarity for Britain and for Blair at a time of national tragedy.

 

And it seems likely that the "Gleneagles effect" could play for a while in European politics too. There will be no more of Jacques Chirac's cheap gibes at the trustworthiness of a nation which cooks in British style. The French president was the very model of a senior statesman at Gleneagles, helping to forge a compromise with President Bush on climate change.

 

Though politics rarely takes long to shake back into its normal patterns it will hardly seem the time for other European leaders to renew their assaults on the British budget rebate and there will be a greater impetus to achieve a compromise deal. There will too be a renewed opportunity, which Blair is likely to grasp with relish in the chair, to drive forward European co-operation on counter terrorism.

Pray That the right EU leadership emerge from the complex events in Europe

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Luxembourg Leader Hopes EU Charter Revived

10.07.2005  By CONSTANT BRAND .c The Associated Press

[PORTION OF LATE NEWS BULLETIN]

 

LUXEMBOURG (AP) - Luxembourg approved the European Union's proposed constitution Sunday despite uncertainty over its future, prompting the nation's premier to say it had put the charter ``back on the European agenda'' after recent rejections. Luxembourg's vote means a majority of the union's nations - 13 out of 25 - have approved the constitution. However, the bloc's leaders have frozen the ratification process after the charter was rejected in French and Dutch voters in late spring. The constitution needs unanimous approval to take effect, and leaders in France and The Netherlands have said they will not hold a second vote.

Pray that God continues to send his signals to his children for prayer

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Juncker in blistering attack on Blair

23.06.2005 - 07:57 CET | By Honor Mahony

Article >> http://euobserver.com/?aid=19401&rk=1

 

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Outgoing president of the EU Jean-Claude Juncker launched a blistering attack on the British prime minister laying the blame squarely at Tony Blair’s door for last week’s summit failure.

 

In an hour-long account to MEPs on Wednesday (22 June), Mr Juncker accused Mr Blair of using false arguments about the scale of farming subsidies and being misleading about the presidency’s proposals to try and forge a deal.

 

The Luxembourg leader said he had not tried to scrap the annual British rebate, over which the summit eventually collapsed.

 

"It is not true that the presidency wanted to kill the British cheque. We wanted to maintain it unchanged for the 15 old member states but give it greater solidarity with the new member states".

 

In an indirect reference to Mr Blair who will address the parliament on Thursday morning, Mr Juncker then said "I am telling you this because no one else will and because you are likely to hear other explanations in the future".

He went on to indicate that London had scuppered a deal by insisting that a review of the budget policy concentrate solely on reform of the farm subsidies saying that such a proposal was "impossible because it was unacceptable to other member states".

Mr Juncker also rejected Mr Blair’s assertions that seven times more is being spent on farm subsidies than on research and development. "The CAP is the only real community policy entirely financed by the EU budget. Research is essentially a national budget, supported by the European budget. You cannot compare the two", he said.

 

© EUobserver.com 2005 Printed from EUobserver.com 25.06.2005

[FOR FULL ARTICLE GO TO LINK AT START]

Pray again that the right leadership emerges in Europe for God’s program.

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Blair Casts Himself As EU Reformer

 

By BETH GARDINER

.c The Associated Press

 

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair emerged from a bitter European Union summit defiant and calling ever more loudly for fundamental reform of the floundering bloc.

 

Blair was unapologetic after what began as a fight about money turned into a showdown over sharply divergent visions of the EU's future, fueled by growing tension between the British leader and French President Jacques Chirac. Blair's defense of Britain's multibillion dollar rebate helped cause the acrimonious collapse early Saturday of the two-day meeting that was meant to put the EU back on track after voters in two nations rejected its proposed constitution.

 

Chirac blamed Britain's ``selfishness'' for the mess and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder faulted Blair's ``stubbornness'' for what Schroeder called ``one of the worst political crises Europe has ever seen. ''Blair, visibly furious at a late-night news conference, said it was an opportunity to change Europe for the better.

``The European Union as an idea makes sense in today's world, but it has to constantly have the ability and the energy to renew itself,'' he argued. ``It can either renew itself or it's going to find itself in increasing difficulties.''

[FOR FULL ARTICLE GO TO AP]   

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.  All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Pray again that the right leadership emerges in Europe for God’s program and that He will direct them, knowingly or unknowingly, to accomplish His government plan.

 

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“Marriage" Resolution Seen as Threat to Religious Freedom

Pro-Family Group Protests Move

 

BRUSSELS, Belgium, JUNE 17, 2005 (Zenit.org, Vatican).- The passing of an anti-discrimination resolution in the European Union could end up violating religious freedom by imposing homosexual marriage, warns a pro-family association.

 

The European Parliament on June 8 adopted a report on the protection of minorities and anti-discrimination policies in the European Union, written by Claude Moraes, a Socialist from the United Kingdom. The report passed on a vote of 360-272, with 20 abstentions. "Of course, the report's commendable aim is to protect minorities from discriminations," said a statement from Euro-Fam, a lobbying organization that works to protect human dignity, the family and the unborn. "However, this becomes egregiously problematic when it is done at the expense of other freedoms: in this case, there is a disconcerting threat to the freedom of religion," it added.

 

Fallout in education

The inclusion of Paragraph 22 in the report indicates that the European Parliament believes that freedom of religion involves discrimination and homophobia, citing the field of education ZE05061708.

[[FOR FULL ARTICLE GO TO ZENIT] 

Pray that the laws of Europe will protect marriage in it’s traditional form and intent.

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EU 2 VISION  Summit: two visions of Europe provoke deep crisis

 

EU leaders fail to reach a deal on the budget framework for 2007-2013. Jean-Claude Juncker admits that Europe is in "a deep crisis"

Constitution   Tuesday 21 June 2005

http://www.euractiv.com/Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-141184-16&type=News&_lang=EN&email=7581

 

In Short:

EU leaders fail to reach a deal on the budget framework for 2007-2013. Jean-Claude Juncker admits that Europe is in "a deep crisis"

 

Positions: Luxemburg Prime minister and EU President Juncker admitted that there were "two conceptions of Europe that clashed":

1.] the countries that want a big free-trade zone (led by the UK but also supported by most of the new member states)  and

2.] those countries wanting to have a more politically integrated EU (with France as most outspoken voice).

French President Chirac "deplored" the UK's position on the rebate.

Pray that the political, economic and social forces in Europe are directed to create God’s preferred government for Europe in these days.

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Blair sees way out of EU budget impasse

http://www.euractiv.com/Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-141264-16&type=News&_lang=EN&email=7581

 Published: Tuesday 21 June 2005 - 08:36 | Updated: Tuesday 21 June 2005 - 08:46Sprachen: [DE]

Brief News:

Tony Blair did not seem to have a hard time convincing his home crowd in the House of Commons of the good reasons for the UK's decision to block a budget deal at the EU summit on 16-17 June. But in his summit debrief on 20 June Blair went to some length to calm dissatisfaction in the new members states that will suffer from the lack of a new EU budget:   

 

"Our position therefore was not to refuse any change to the rebate, to rule out a discussion, or to disown our responsibility to pay for the enlargement of Europe we support passionately.  I proposed that we have a fundamental review of the EU Budget, reporting in time for us to be able - midway through the next financial period - to alter fundamentally the structure of the Budget, dealing both with the rebate and the CAP. In the meantime, of course, we would ensure we paid our fair share of enlargement," Blair said.

 

This midterm review, too vaguely formulated at the summit in Blair's mind, would be after the French presidential elections in 2007. Blair also put forward figures explaining that the present budget is a bad deal for the new member states. 

PRAY that Europeans can correctly choose between a cooperative group of unique nations and a closely integrated union

 

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The book that shaped Europe

Jeff Fountain  YWAM Europe, “w e e k l y   w o r d”  27 Jun/05

 

WITH GREAT ANTICIPATION WE THREADED OUR WAY THROUGH THE STREETS AND CANALS OF AMSTERDAM towards the Biblical Museum. This would be our first of many museum visits during the two-week Share the Heritage tour. We had gathered in De Poort, the YWAM training centre in Amsterdam, twenty-two of us from eight different countries. After introductions we had each shared why we had chosen to participate in this mobile seminar.

 

The purpose of the tour, I had explained, was to stimulate awareness of Europe's Christian heritage, and of how central the gospel had been in shaping Europe's past. Short memories bred short-sightedness, I had stressed. When we were not aware of our roots we were easily robbed of our heritage.

--SKIPPING DOWN TO LATER PARAGRAPHS--

Many European languages were fundamentally shaped by Bible translations into the vernacular. That was true of John Wycliffe's English translation, Martin Luther's German translation and the Statenvertaling in Dutch. It was also true of the much earlier efforts of Ulfilas giving the Goths the Scriptures in their own language, and of Cyril and Methodius doing the same for the Slavs. Such translations gave a standard reference for the development of nation-wide uniformity instead of countless local dialects, and became the source of many proverbs and sayings embedded into European languages and thought patterns.

 

The Bible inspired the vast majority of European art and literature up until modern times, including such artists as Michaelangelo, da Vinci, Rembrandt and even van Gogh, as well as a host of writers including Shakespeare, Milton, Donne and Herbert. It had shaped the development of politics, inspiring the separation of powers in Reformational times between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, reflected throughout the world today in democracies. Many parties today draw their primary political inspiration from biblical wisdom. Most of the founding fathers of the European Coal and Steel Community, the forerunner of the European Union, consciously understood their efforts to be towards the reconstruction of Europe on biblical foundations. Even the rejected EU constitution embraced concepts such as subsidiarity, solidarity and human rights which owe their inspiration to the biblical understanding of humankind.

 

And on we could go: hospitals and nursing, the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, laws to protect the working man and woman, the development of trade unions, many philanthropic and service organisations from Alcoholics Anonymous to the Red Cross, were all directly or indirectly inspired by this unique book.

 

Shouldn't Bible museums be places to make people think about such things? After all, 'museum'  comes from the word 'muse', to think. Perhaps such stimulation was there to be found, but we missed it. Of course, the Bible has not been the only influence on Europe. And when we forget the Bible and ignore its truth, we will find these other influences filling the vacuum - like those ancient deities painted on the ceiling, that were already there before the Bible museum moved in. As Bible consciousness wanes in Europe, the old deities that were

worshipped before the Bible was introduced are returning in new seductive guises. Witness the Da Vinci Code.

 

Over the next two weeks, however, as we travel through Holland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, we will discover that Europe is still one great open-air museum testifying to the singular influence of this Book on this continent.

[IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIOBE TO THE ABOVE YWAM REPORT - please send a message to:weeklyword-owner@list.ywameurope.org Please include a FORWARDED  list message with ALL HEADERS intact to make it easier to help  you.]

Pray That God will order events so that the Bible or Christianity will be elevated as a major force to be recognised in the constitution of Europe

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The European Evangelical Alliance Creates Task Force

 

New Missions Strategy Adopted During General Assembly

2038-01-18 19:14

 

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY – The European Evangelical Alliance created a special task force that is represented in the European Union to help it formulate a policy on “religious liberty and ethics questions,” Oct. 23. The new division was part of the many resolutions drawn during the five day General Assembly meeting in Budapest, mid October. “The EEA aims to raise awareness of religious liberty issues and the legal position of evangelicals within each country, with a view to being able to respond more systematically to increasing challenges in this area," the Alliance stated.

[CONTACT BY EMAIL FOR FULL ARTICLE] pauline@christianpost.com

The next EEA General Assembly will be held in October 2004 in Greece, in conjunction with the Hope for Europe Round Table. The EEA is a regional body of the World Evangelical Alliance representing evangelicals in 130 countries.

Copyright © 2005 The Christian Post. Click for reprint information

Pray that the Christian organisations of Europe be strengthened in influence so as to effect the political forces of Europe. Pray that God will call Christians into political service to be “at the table” when government is being planned

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How is the Commission's work organised?

http://europa.eu.int/institutions/comm/index_en.htm

 

It is up to the Commission President to decide which commissioner will be responsible for which policy area, and to reshuffle these responsibilities (if necessary) during the Commission’s term of office.

 

The Commission meets once a week, usually on Wednesdays in Brussels. Each item on the agenda is presented by the commissioner responsible for that policy area, and the whole team then takes a collective decision on it.

 

The Commission’s staff is organised in departments, known as ‘Directorates-General’ (DGs) and ‘services’ (such as the Legal Service). Each DG is responsible for a particular policy area and is headed by a Director-General who is answerable to one of the commissioners. Overall coordination is provided by the Secretariat-General, which also manages the weekly Commission meetings. It is headed by the Secretary-General, who is answerable directly to the President.

 

Limiting the size of the Commission

A Commission with too many members will not work properly. There is at present one commissioner from each EU country. When Bulgaria and Romania join the European Union it will have 27 member states. At that point, the Council - by a unanimous decision - will fix the maximum number of commissioners. There must be fewer than 27 of them, and their nationality will be determined by a system of rotation that is absolutely fair to all countries.

 

Pray that the issue of national representation is resolved the way God wants it. Ask if it necessary for less than 27 voting members? The Commission carries a lot of power and responsibility over the nations of Europe, ask God to guide it’s affairs

 

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EUReview & Call to Prayer Ministries is conducting this multi-denominational ministry under the mission program of the Assemblies of God Western Europe office outside of Brussels, Belgium. The mailing address there is: EMC/EURCP (Gerald Branum.) 45 Chaussee de Waterloo, 1640 Rhode Saint Genese, BELGIUM

(Your comments are welcome. Your assistance is needed. Can you help mobilise Christians to pray and participate? This call to prayer needs to be prepared by Europeans in other languages and with greater distribution!)


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