EURCP January 2010
Our name & mission “The European Union Review & Call to Prayer”
EU Spanish Presidency, 1st with EU Pres. Herman Van Rompuy on duty
[TARGETED PRAYER MINISTRIES] - EURCP – ARTICLES intros with links
Calling Christians in Europe to pray...before it’s too late [you have authority [ "... that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made..for kings and all who are in authority“ (1 Tim. 2:1-2 and Matt 6:33)
Newsletter publishers: Hugh & Norma Davis [Not directed by any other ministry] http://www.euprayer.com/
.JOIN THE 22 EUROPEAN PRAYER WALL MOVEMENT
We Support 22 prayer walls in Europe, Emmanuel Duvieusart, Pasteur fondateur, “Sentinelles De Priere” email e.duvieusart@free.fr web http://ccea.sentinelles.free.fr/US/ – [Monthly in five other languages]
You too can join with “Sentinelles De Priere” and the 22 prayer walls in Europe, with 5 different languages, perhaps including yours. Contact Emmanuel Duvieusart, Pasteur fondateur http://ccea.sentinelles.free.fr/US/ – [MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE
Open up WEB pages and read the full articles or use google.
1 PRAY for and with the Christian prayer and spiritual activities in the nations of Europe
2* PRAY for internal EU government policies of all non-Parliament branches and Eurozone’s
3* PRAY for EU Parliament, treaty revisions and enlargement policies
4 PRAY for family, Human Rights, Religion and ethical policies of the EU
5 PRAY for the Middle East policies of the EU
6 PRAY for the immigration policies of the EU & EU international relations
7 PRAY for EU policies on national emergencies, security and terrorism
8 PRAY for all 27 EU national governments, social issues and MEP elections
9 PRAY for EU employment, economics and business concerns, warming
1 WORD STUDY : “I sought for a man… who would make a wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land…” Ezekiel 22:30. Are we responding to God’s search personally and corporately?
We have all heard the story of the young Dutch boy who found a hole in a dike and kept it from getting larger by putting his finger in it. It was only a small hole; but if it had gotten larger the North Sea would have come in and flooded his country. He helped to take back the land the Sea would have destroyed.
This is an illustration of “standing in the gap for the land”.
1 Timothy 2:1- 3 urges us to pray for rulers and leaders “first of all” so we can live peaceable, Godly lives. Each of us who responds to this call is helping to we “stand in the gap”, through prayer and intercession, to hold back the waters of materialism, humanism and all of the works of the enemy of God and His people. If we just place ourselves in the small openings we see in the walls; we can help keep the walls strong and keep the enemy from taking our freedoms and hindering God’s purposes for our time. We can be part of the answer to God’s search for those who will work with Him in keeping the walls up and repaired around our Christian values and His purposes. Some of these walls have crumbled; we believe God wants us to work with Him in repairing and building them up again.
The following texts illustrate God’s plan to use His people in ministries of prayer and intercession:
11 Chronicles 7:14 is another text that tells us that our prayers make a difference; we can change things through our prayers – according to God’s plans and purposes for His world, and our land.
In Luke 10, we find another story that illustrates how God uses His people in breaking down enemy defenses and building up His walls:
Verses 1-2: tell us that Jesus sent 70 of His followers to go before Him to places He would later visit.
In Verse 18-20 Jesus told them that He had seen fall from heaven. In other words, they had helped defeat Satan by responding to Jesus’ call on their lives.
Our countries, and the world, need for us to work with God in keeping the walls of protection strong around Christian values and God’s plan for our time. May we work with Him in this – through prayer.
2 Spain aims to bring EU states into line
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/214a4926-fbda-11de-9c29-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss&nclick_check=1
By Tony Barber in Madrid
Published: January 7 2010 22:23 | Last updated: January 7 2010 22:23
The European Union should apply “corrective measures” against member states that fail to meet their obligations under a new 10-year plan to improve the bloc’s competitiveness, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain’s premier, said on Thursday night.In a proposal likely to stir controversy among other EU governments, Mr Zapatero said the European Commission should be granted powers to police compliance with the plan, which is expected to be adopted in March and is known as the “2020 strategy”.
He said the EU was at its most effective when all 27 states operated under binding common rules, such as that governing competition policy. It was the absence of strong enforcement, he added, that had doomed the Lisbon agenda – a plan approved 10 years ago that aimed, and failed, to make Europe the world’s most competitive economy by 2010.“What failed? Compliance. Because compliance was purely rhetorical,” he told reporters. “The Lisbon treaty allows for more co-ordination, and for that to be truly effective, we need to equip the European Commission with new powers,” he said. “If Europe wants to keep its economic strength and wants to compete and become more prosperous, Europe has to unite. Anything else is a waste of time.”
PRAYER TARGET – UNITY ON ESSENTIALS, DIVERSITY ON PREFERENCES
2. EU asks Slovakia to explain explosives botch-up -
http://euobserver.com/9/29234/?rk=1
08.01.2010 - 16:23
The European Commission has confirmed it will be sending a letter to the government of Slovakia, seeking clarifications on a recent airport security botch-up that resulted in a man unwittingly carrying explosives from Slovakia into the Republic of Ireland.
PRAYER TARGET – ENFORCEMENT OF EU SECURITY PROCEDURES
2. EU commissioner hearings to go ahead without staff protests –
http://euobserver.com/9/29230/?rk=1
08.01.2010 - 12:49
The hearings of the nominee EU commissioners by MEPs next week will go ahead without disruption after European Parliament chief Jerzy Buzek indicated to staff unions that the assembly would sign up to a court case over pay.
PRAYER TARGET – RESOLUTION OF CASE OVER RATE OF PAY
3 The new European Commission[fr][de]
http://www.euractiv.com/en/priorities/new-european-commission/article-180216
Published: Friday 13 March 2009 | Updated: Thursday 3 December 2009
The selection of a new European Commission, never the simplest of political tasks, has this year been more complex than ever. Politically and institutionally, 2009 came with a whole range of permutations regarding the 'how?', 'when?' and 'who?' of the next EU executive
Barroso unveils new EU Commission line-up (27 November 2009)
EU civil servant pay row goes to court (07 January 2010)
Brussels pledges antitrust overhaul (07 January 2010)
EU's new regional chief: Europe can prove 'added value’ (19 December 200
PRAYER TARGET – READ THE WEB AND PRAY FOR THE PLAYERS
3. Bulgaria puts price on Turkey's EU membership –
http://euobserver.com/9/29212/?rk=1
04.01.2010 - 17:19
Bulgaria is threatening to block Turkey's application to join the European Union unless it pays out billions of Euros in compensation for displaced people, in a case dating back to the days of the Ottoman Empire.
PRAYER TARGET- THE QUESTION OF TURKEY IN EUROPE
4 E.U. Leaders Call for Sanctions Against Reform Busters
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/world/europe/09iht-union.html
By STEPHEN CASTLE
Published: January 8, 2010
* [eurcp note; WHO IS Van Rompuy and what will he do]?
MADRID — Europe will be unable to afford its extensive social programs without economic change, the European Union’s new permanent president, Herman Van Rompuy, warned Friday, supporting calls for sanctions against countries that fail to honor pledges to reform their economies.
At a news conference marking the start of Spain’s presidency of the E.U., Mr. Van Rompuy shared the spotlight with the Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and with the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso. They went out of their way to resemble the “Three Amigos,” but the crowded stage highlighted the difficulty the bloc is having streamlining its leadership.
The E.U.’s six-month rotating presidency was supposed to be scaled back by the recently enacted Lisbon Treaty, which created Mr. Van Rompuy’s job. But on Thursday Mr. Zapatero set the political agenda by calling for a new European economic reform plan, which is about to be drawn up, to be made binding on national governments.
On Friday, all three leaders agreed on the need for a more strictly enforced reform program — an idea that would need the support of all 27 governments and that will probably be viewed with suspicion in Germany and Britain.
Those governments will be watching closely to see if the plan suggests a significant expansion of economic governance in the E.U., removing power from national governments.
On Friday none of the three E.U. leaders would give any detail on what would be proposed or what sanctions could be applied. But Mr. Van Rompuy made the clearest case for such a change.
The political mood, he said, had been transformed by the financial crisis and the global politics of the climate change conference in Copenhagen last month. “The balance of power has shifted,” Mr. Van Rompuy said, “and Europe is more on the defensive now than it was a few years ago.”
He said that with huge budget deficits and the prospect of growth of only around one percent as the bloc emerges from the financial crisis, Europe faces a big challenge. “We cannot on a solid basis pay for our social model, or what I call our European way of life,” Mr. Van Rompuy argued, adding: “We now have a window of opportunity for a strategy.”
Next month E.U. leaders will meet to discuss plans for the new “2020” program to increase research and development, address labor market failings, and focus on areas such as the digital economy, energy and green growth. The idea is to get final agreement by the end of June. The E.U.’s last such project, the Lisbon agenda, was supposed to make the bloc the world’s most competitive economy by 2010, something it manifestly failed to do.
On Thursday Mr. Zapatero called for greater economic union, suggesting that the European Commission should gain more of the kind of powers it enjoys to enforce anti-trust decisions, and ensure a level playing field in the bloc’s single market.
Mr. Van Rompuy described the idea as “very ambitious” but said that many E.U. nations feel a greater “sense of urgency” than a few years ago.
Mr. Barroso pointed out that proposals to increase pressure on E.U. nations to carry through reforms were rejected five years ago, but that the climate had changed since the onset of the financial crisis.
At the Madrid news conference, the three men largely managed to avoid contradicting each other, though their appearance showed that changes designed to streamline the EU have — in the short term — simply produced an extra president.
Mr. Van Rompuy’s job was designed to provide continuity and to take over the leadership job occupied by the prime minister of the country that holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU.
Defending the new arrangement, Mr. Van Rompuy said that “in a democracy it is not one man or woman who decides.”
At one point he and Mr. Barroso both deferred to the other as neither appeared eager to answer one questioner ahead of the other. Then came the only minor disagreement of the afternoon, in response to a question about whose phone should ring in a crisis. Mr. Van Rompuy said the world was “more complicated than that.” Mr. Zapatero said it would be “advisable for the phone to ring in the office of the permanent president of the council” — Mr. Van Rompuy.
PRAYER TARGET – PRAY FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
5 Israel And Iran-The Gathering Storm
http://www.economist.com/world/middleeast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15213442
Jan 7th 2010 | JERUSALEM AND TEL AVIV
From The Economist print edition
Raiders of Osiraq SHORTLY after four in the afternoon on June 7th 1981, the late King Hussein of Jordan looked up from his yacht off the port of Aqaba and saw eight Israeli F-16 jets, laden with weapons and external fuel tanks, streaking eastward. He called his military staff, but could not find out what was going on. An hour or so later, the answer became clear. After a ground-hugging infiltration through Saudi Arabia, the jets climbed up near Baghdad and bombed Saddam Hussein’s Osiraq nuclear reactor.
Zeev Raz, the squadron’s leader (pictured bottom right), still recalls every phase of “Operation Opera”: his constant worries about running out of fuel; the risky move to jettison tanks, while the bombs were still attached to the wings, to reduce drag; and the loss of a key navigational marker. He overshot his target and had to loop back. He later discovered that his deputy, Amos Yadlin (now Israel’s military-intelligence chief), had slipped ahead and, annoyingly, dropped the first bombs. Somehow the Iraqis were surprised. King Hussein’s tip had not been passed on. And even though Iraq was then at war with Iran, there were no air patrols or active surface-to-air missile batteries.
PRAYER TARGET – PRAY FOR THE MIDDLE EAST HAS THE SPIRIT WOULD LEAD
5 A worsening political crisis in Afghanistan
http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15207296&fsrc=nwl
AP/AFP
THIS was supposed to be the month when Afghanistan would put an end to nearly eight months of political crisis and get on with beating back the Taliban insurgency. Western diplomats had talked optimistically of Hamid Karzai moving past his fraudulent re-election as president, with the appointment of a government of talented technocrats. And plans for another round of elections (this time for the parliament) would be quietly dropped, letting Stanley McChrystal, the American commander of NATO forces, concentrate on using the extra troops granted to him by Barack Obama to “secure the population” rather than just polling stations.
PRAYER TARGET - SAME AS ABOVE
5 Israel to deploy Iron Dome artillery defense
January 9, 8:49 AMNY Israel Conflict
Get alerts when there is a new article from the NY Israel Conflict Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use. Email Address Include other special offers from Examiner.com
On time, Israel has developed the Iron Dome anti-missile system, and is ready to deploy it. It is meant to handle short-range artillery and rockets. Other systems are for longer-range missiles (www.imra.org.il, 1/6).An earlier article explained that it was a poor system of defense compared with its rival, but was the more remunerative for certain influential people
PRAYER TARGET – ISRAEL’S PROTECTION AND SECURITY.
6 Migrants evacuated from southern Italian town
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8450083.stm
Page last updated at 14:42 GMT, Saturday, 9 January 2010
There were reportedly cheers as the workers left
Italian authorities have evacuated hundreds of migrants from a southern town and brought in extra police after violent protests broke out.
Some 320 African migrants, many of whom work as fruit-pickers in Calabria, were taken by bus to an emergency centre.
Extra police were deployed after two days of riots, during which 37 people were injured and cars were set alight.
The violence broke out after two migrants were shot at with pellet guns by a group of local youths.
PRAYER TARGET – THE MIGRANTS AND THERE CARE AND SALVATION
7. Belgium to step up security at EU summits –
http://euobserver.com/9/29220/?rk=1
VALENTINA POP
07.01.2010 @ 09:19 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Belgian authorities on Wednesday (7 January) said they will step up security at EU summits after being embarrassed by Greenpeace activists who breached the system in December to stage a surprise protest."From now on, there will be two ways in: One for heads of government and another for the rest of their delegations," said Belgian interior ministry spokeswoman Margaux Donckier, according to AFP.
Comment article She added that the breach had highlighted "a system that has not evolved at the same rate as the [enlarged] EU and in which protocol was given priority over security."
PRAYER TARGET - THE SAFETY OF THE EU PERSONNEL
Germany's fractious government
8 Angela Merkel's wobbly restart
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=15180914
Dec 30th 2009 | BERLIN From The Economist print edition
EVEN its supporters cannot claim that Germany’s centre-right government has got off to an impressive start. Since the coalition of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) with Guido Westerwelle’s Free Democrats (FDP) took office in late October, a row over Afghanistan has toppled one minister and engulfed a second; the government has enacted tax cuts nobody seems to want; and it has feuded bitterly over a minor appointment to a museum. Ms Merkel, the supposed “climate chancellor”, failed to rescue the planet in Copenhagen (see article). Her Christmas holiday, mostly spent cross-country skiing, must have come as a relief.
Ms Merkel’s main legislative achievement is a “growth acceleration law” that has drawn ridicule from economists and split the CDU but left voters cold. The economists expect little acceleration from €8.5 billion ($12 billion) of tax cuts that include relief for families, much of which will be saved, plus a cut in value-added tax for hotel stays.
PRAYER TARGET – WISDOM AND INSIGHT FOR THIS KEY EU LEADER
9 EU taxpayers, brace yourselvesIn an astonishing bout of hubris
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/08/eu-officials-pay-rise-court
EU officials are taking recession-hit members to court to enforce a scheduled pay rise
Stephen Booth guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 January 2010 09.00 GMT
The European Union has started 2010 with a nagging hangover that just won't go away. It all started in the runup to Christmas, when officials' demands for a 3.7% pay rise were refused by seven member states, including the UK, who suggested that, with countries such as Ireland and Latvia undergoing major austerity measures in the wake of the recession, maybe it just wasn't the right signal to send to EU citizens. This subsequently led to a series of strikes by bureaucrats threatening to disrupt meetings of national ministers.
PRAYER TARGET – NEW ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES FOR MARGINAL TAXPAYERS