Today's Date:

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FIGHT AGAINST TERRORISM/IRAQ

What the Americans have said from the outset - and we totally agree with them - is that the fight against terrorism requires a long-term, in-depth commitment, that it won't stop with the elimination of al-Qaida and has to develop on several fronts. (...)

Yes I am, I don't know if that's the right word, but I can't rule out that hypothesis. We have said that moving on to other phases after this operation against al-Qaida in Afghanistan would require at the very least, as the British themselves have said, the Americans providing some very convincing proof. There must perhaps even be a new resolution if something different were involved.

As for action against Iraq - which the Americans who are advocating it themselves say is totally unrelated to 11 September - we would clearly not be able to support it.

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France can't agree with that. Both President Chirac and the Prime Minister have said so. President Chirac has repeated that we couldn't be in favour of special tribunals, that there are normal judicial procedures which can be used and the Prime Minister has stated that the best thing would be for there to be international tribunals.

If there are people to try, that would be a better procedure and, in any case, there must be no special tribunals.

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AFGHANISTAN

We said we were ready and willing to contribute, there's no reason to regret that. We said we had the capabilities to participate in the battle against terrorism. Admittedly, France and Britain are among only a handful of countries with a credible, recognized military capability, which doesn't cover the whole range of weapons, since the United States is the only country with one which does that. The US forces considered that French naval cooperation was very important at one point, that our reconnaissance aircraft were very effective. The exchange of intelligence was extremely appreciated.

On the British side, a number of elements were also deemed useful. Just because the US armed forces, for reasons of convenience, preferred to run things all alone doesn't mean there were no grounds for offering those services, based, I repeat, on genuine capacity.

Let me also draw your attention - and this is something quite different - to the fact that at one point, when the Talib regime started wobbling and it was possible to liberate Mazãr-i-Sharif, the Americans were keen for troops to be sent there very quickly - and this was the case in Bagram too - to help secure the area. Here too we reacted swiftly, positively and in a spirit of cooperation and solidarity. Subsequently, we hit lots of problems - the French in getting into Mazãr-i-Sharif and the British in carrying out what they had planned to do in Bagram. The UN also had difficulty in developing its humanitarian programmes. (...) I think that we did the right thing by making those offers.

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EU/LAEKEN/EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT

If we can't do anything else, yes. But Italy should think this through. It's absurd for this very European country, in total agreement with the rest of us after 11 September when we said that the Europeans had to speed up, facilitate our procedures, to be a stumbling block for us on this. I don't believe it's a good policy for Italy to hinder this agreement of the Fifteen.

- It isn't ruled out. We included in the Nice Treaty the concept of enhanced cooperation which allows a number of countries to conduct policies so as to move forward without being paralysed by those not ready to do so. If need be, we shall proceed using that mechanism. But on the substance of the issue, clearly, some way or other, we shall have to overcome this unexpected obstacle and we need this arrest warrant. Otherwise, we shall go on having to work with very long, very difficult procedures and this harmonization of justice in Europe will take years longer. So we must make headway.

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EUROPEAN CONVENTION CHAIRMAN

President Chirac has given it his support, as has the Prime Minister. So he is our country's candidate for that office of Chairman of the Convention which, between the Laeken Summit in a few days' time and the Intergovernmental Conference in 2003-2004, has to negotiate and finally decide on the distribution of powers in Europe between the European and national levels, and the organization of the ones at European level.

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ENLARGEMENT/ROMANIA AND BULGARIA

- That's not exactly what I said. Our great challenge is to make a success simultaneously of the institutional reform and this new major enlargement which is going to take Europe from 15 countries to, I don't know, 25 or more. (...)

As regards the debate on enlargement, we had to decide whether to negotiate on the basis of each country's application, deciding when each of them is ready - this is what we've done over the last few years at several European Councils - or whether there's already a political approach which has replaced the objective, differentiated, country-by-country one. Some time ago, I put the question to the Commission. I didn't say that we had to bring in Romania and Bulgaria at all costs, I asked the Commission this question: are you still negotiating on an objective, country-by-country basis, or, when you talk about 10 countries in one go, is this a political initiative? If that's the case, Romania and Bulgaria shouldn't be forgotten. The negotiating method must be clarified, it's as simple as that./.