The EURCP -European Union Review & Call to Prayer- January 2007

Newsletter publishers: Hugh & Norma Davis [Not directed by any other ministry] http://www.euprayer.com/

Support 14 prayer walls in Europe  Emmanuel Duvieusart, Pasteur fondateur, “Sentinelles De Priere”   email info@sentinelles.info 

http://ccea.sentinelles.free.fr/US/– [Monthly in five other languages]

 

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NIGHTWATCH FOR EUROPE: week beginning Sunday December 31st 2006

Date: 12/29/2006  From: admin@passion.org.uk

‘Could you not watch with me for one hour?’ (Mtt26: 40)

WELCOME TO THIS NEW YEAR NIGHT WATCH FOR EUROPE

 

This year is likely to be a year of trial for many of us, as is emphasized in the prophetic word we have been praying into over the last month or more. This should not discourage us but gives cause for rejoicing! We can gain very important ground this way and is the most practical form of intercession. We now have one year and 10 months remaining of our three and a half year watch and it is time to increase the level of engagement.

 

So this week we will begin with the final excerpt of the prophetic word, pray into some important scriptures that strengthen us in it before praying again for Bulgaria and Romania that join the European Union this week, using the information provided on the official EU website. It may be that some of the technical information does not transfer well from the EU website to the system we use to send this watch to you. Please do the best you can with what you receive. You can simply go to http://europa.eu/abc/index_en.htm  yourself and click on your preferred language and then Bulgaria and Romania to get the information properly

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Evangelical Alliance and Care welcome Conservative leader's comments on family

Press Release

http://www.eauk.org/media/breakdown-britain.cfm

 

We welcome Cameron's comments in response to the 'Breakdown Britain' report -13 December 2006

The Evangelical Alliance welcomes Conservative Party leader David Cameron's comments that the UK would be better off with more marriage and fewer divorces. Mr Cameron’s comments come following the release of the Breakdown Britain report, produced by the Conservative Party’s Social Justice Policy Group.

In the major Faith & Nation report, the Evangelical Alliance has called on the Government to promote laws, policies, and financial incentives that strengthen marriage and family life as foundational for civil society. The report calls for Evangelicals to:

-a) Commend and support the divine ordinance of marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman, and promote it, together with the family, as central to the well-being of society.

-b) Call on the Government to promote laws and policies and financial incentives that strengthen marriage and family life as foundational for civil society.

 

Dan Boucher, Director of Parliamentary Affairs for the Christian social action charity CARE, said: “CARE warmly welcomes the Breakdown Britain report. Whilst it is true that family breakdown is the result of a myriad of factors and that cannot simply be reversed by the passage of a new Act of Parliament, there is a great deal that the Government could do to strengthen family life in Britain.

PRAY for governments of Europe that they will protect the family of a father and a mother, as God’s perfect plan

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[If you abide in Him and He abides in you, then you will receive what you ask - John 15:7

 

Germany Prepares to Take Helm of EU and G8

By Ralf Beste and Hans-Jürgen Schlamp

URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,456647,00.html

SPIEGEL ONLINE - December 27, 2006, 02:42 PM

 

2007 will be a big year for Germany: As president of the European Union, Chancellor Angela Merkel will have to reenergize a flagging European project. And as chair of the G8, she will have to resolve some of the most burning issues facing the world's industrialized nations. Is the chancellor up to the job?

 

Rainald Steck is nothing if not well traveled: He has served as Germany's ambassador in Togo, Senegal and most recently in Afghanistan. Nowadays, however, as a result of his recent stint as the Foreign Ministry's head of protocol, the 61-year-old has been forced to stay closer to home. His last trip was to the northern German town of Heiligendamm, home to the five-star Kempinski Grand Hotel, one of Germany's most luxurious.

 

For a few days at the beginning of June, around 15 heads of state and government from all over the world will be visiting the Baltic Coast resort. And a swarm of 2,000 delegates and 4,000 journalists, in itself a logistical feat, will be fighting to get to the G8 summit. After inspecting the hotel, Steck assured journalists that the "level of comfort" for foreign guests staying there would be extremely high. "People will be able to get down to business," he said. .[Read more in link]

 

German EU Presidency: In Brief[fr][de]

http://www.euractiv.com/en/agenda2004/german-eu-presidency-brief/article-160361

 

Published: Friday 8 December 2006 | Updated: Wednesday 20 December 2006

Germany takes over the EU Presidency from Finland on 1 January 2007. EurActiv provides links to the priorities, key players and dates of the German Presidency.

Background: .[Read more in link]

From 1 January to 1 July 2007, Germany will organise and chair the Council meetings. The motto of the presidency is “Together Europe can succeed”.

Along with the EU Presidency, Germany will also chair the G8 from 1 January 2007.

 

 

 

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Ever closer union Happy Birthday to EU

http://www.economist.com/daily/news/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=8406877

Dec 27th 2006 | BRUSSELS

 

Next year marks the EU's 50th anniversary

AFTER a period of introversion and stunned self-disbelief, continental European governments will recover their enthusiasm for pan-European institution-building in 2007. Whether the European public will welcome a return to what voters in two countries had rejected so short a time before is another matter.

 

There are several reasons for Europe’s recovering self-confidence. For years European economies had been lagging dismally behind America (to say nothing of Asia), but in 2006 the large continental economies had one of their best years for a decade, briefly outstripping America in terms of growth. Since politics often reacts to economic change with a lag, 2006’s improvement in economic growth will have its impact in 2007, though the recovery may be ebbing by then.

 

The coming year also marks a particular point in a political cycle so regular that it almost seems to amount to a natural law. Every four or five years, European countries take a large stride towards further integration by signing a new treaty: the Maastricht treaty in 1992, the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, the Treaty of Nice in 2001. And in 2005 they were supposed to ratify a European constitution, laying the ground for yet more integration—until the calm rhythm was rudely shattered by French and Dutch voters. But the political impetus to sign something every four or five years has only been interrupted, not immobilised, by this setback.

 

In 2007 the European Union marks the 50th anniversary of another treaty—the Treaty of Rome, its founding charter. Government leaders have already agreed to celebrate it ceremoniously, restating their commitment to “ever closer union” and the basic ideals of European unity. By itself, and in normal circumstances, the EU’s 50th-birthday greeting to itself would be fairly meaningless, a routine expression of European good fellowship. But it does not take a Machiavelli to spot that once governments have signed the declaration (and it seems unlikely anyone would be so uncollegiate as to veto it) they will already be halfway towards committing themselves to a new treaty. All that will be necessary will be to incorporate the 50th-anniversary declaration into a new treaty containing a number of institutional and other reforms extracted from the failed attempt at constitution-building and—hey presto—a new quasi-constitution will be ready.[Read more in link]

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EU losing support, poll shows

http://www.euractiv.com/en/constitution/eu-losing-support-poll-shows/article-160550

Published: Monday 18 December 2006 | Updated: Tuesday 19 December 2006

The latest Eurobarometer, published on 18 December 2006, shows a slight fall in support for the EU. Paradoxically, in France and the Netherlands, support for the rejected draft European Constitution has risen dramatically.

 

While the results of Eurobarometer 66 partly indicated a fall in support for EU membership, the Netherlands and France (two countries in which the Constitution was roundly rejected in 2005) are now more supportive of the Treaty (with 59% and 56% respectively now in favour, acording to the poll). However, there are still doubts, as a major survey recently undertaken in the Netherlands showed that more than 68% of the Dutch would still vote against the draft Constitution and last month's parliamentary elections were won by parties of a strong Eurosceptic persuasion. .[Read more in link]

 

 

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As EU gates open, 'paradise' flows East

Bulgarians and Romanians, finding better prospects at home, are unlikely to flood westward come Jan. 1.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1229/p06s02-woeu.htm

from the December 29, 2006 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1229/p06s02-woeu.html

By Michael J. Jordan | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

 

SOFIA, BULGARIA; AND BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

Thirty miles south of the Bulgarian capital, along winding, wintry mountain roads, Lalo Zifritov stands guard outside the skeleton of a three-story home being built in the sleepy town of Samokov. The owner pays him the equivalent of $13 per day to keep an eye on the site round-the-clock.

 

His pay goes chiefly to food, diapers, and a few sweets for his three kids - ages 7, 4, and 1. They live without central heating.When his aunt and cousins migrated to Italy last year, they invited him to join them. He declined. One deterrent, says the 28-year-old, was the cost of the passport, visa, and travel. "Poverty ruins everything," says Mr. Zifritov, as his wife chops wood nearby. "But we're not so courageous to just move abroad."

 

The last time the EU opened its doors to new members in 2004, hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans pushed westward. But despite Western fears that hordes of desperate, job-seeking Bulgarians and Romanians will again flood the European Union when their countries become members on Jan. 1, many - like Zifritov - have compelling reasons to stay home. "Some believe 'paradise' is in Western Europe, but some of this paradise will soon be coming here," says Krassen Stanchev, executive director of the Institute for Market Economics in Sofia. .[Read more in link]

 

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 Charlemagne Enlargement troubles

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=8408622

Dec 13^th 2006 From The Economist print edition

How did the European Union come to this pass with Turkey—and with enlargement in general?

IT MIGHT have been worse. On December 11^th European Union foreign ministers agreed to suspend eight out of 35 “chapters” in Turkey’s negotiations to join the EU. This punishment was made only marginally more tolerable by the knowledge that Germany wanted a hefty 21 chapters frozen, and by the news that the EU had promised to re-examine (though not lift) its economic blockade of Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus. But the Turks were swift to rail at the EU’s “injustice”.

 

Turkey is not the only country in the south-eastern corner of Europe whose relations with the EU are now in limbo. Talks with Serbia over an association agreement were called off in May. And, seven years after the war in Kosovo, the EU has little idea what to do with that independence-seeking statelet. There are specific reasons in each case. The Serbs are being punished for not handing over General Ratko Mladic to The Hague war-crimes tribunal; the Turks for not opening up ports and airports to traffic with Cyprus. But that there are troubles with enlargement across the board is more than just a coincidence. The assumptions and justifications that lie behind the policy are being challenged as never before

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EURCP readers – Keep the European Union of Prayer – in your prayers - along with Chairman Ortwin Schweitzer – We are planning to be active during the 50th EU/Rome Treaty anniversary – we will keep you informed on how to pray

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EUReview & Call to Prayer Ministries, Hugh and Norma Davis EURCP@aol.com , http://www.euprayer.com

Also contact http://ccea.sentinelles.free.fr/US/  Emmanuel Duvieusart, for Prayer Wall, email info@sentinelles.info 

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KEEP PRAYING, IT’S WORKING