WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3854/98 by Anita POLLACK European Union Visitors Programme
C 289/98 Official Journal of the European Communities EN 11. 10. 1999 Answer given by Mr Oreja on behalf of the Commission (5 March 1999) Total production costs for the publication ‘The Raspberry Ice Cream War’ (Swedish title ‘Glasskriget’) come to 181 970 euro. The costs for subsequent distribution on demand in the individual Member States are an integrated part of the work of the Commission representations and cannot be calculated. The publication has been printed in the following number of copies by language: Danish 14 650, German 97 530, English 136 100, Greek 10 900, French 112 100, Italian 31 520, Dutch 43 050, Spanish 47 000, Portuguese 33 400, Finnish 5 500, Swedish 7 250. The Commission receives many requests for information material about the Community for use in schools. It has at present no plans to produce publications similar to the ‘The Raspberry Ice Cream War’. (1999/C 289/129) WRITTEN QUESTION E-3854/98 by Anita Pollack (PSE) to the Commission (4 January 1999) Subject: European Union Visitors Programme Could the Commission indicate the percentage of EUVP participants during last year who were visiting European Union countries for the first time? Answer given by Mr Oreja on behalf of the Commission (4 February 1999) Of the 160 non-Community nationals invited to participate in the European Union visitors programme (EUVP) in 1998, 141 will have visited Brussels and either Strasbourg or one Member State before the end of the calendar year. Of these, 27 % have not visited the Community in the last five years, 42 % have attended conferences orseminars, or visited the Community on brief business trips, but not on a regular basis, 4 % have visited the Community on a regular basis (i. e. at least once a year), 3 % have been posted to Member States for a period of more than six months, 11 % have visited Europe on private trips, and 1 % have stayed in a Member State for more than six months at university. For 12 %, no relevant information is available. The inter-institutional EUVP is designed to enable young leaders from third countries to visit the Community, and in particular, its institutions, in order to gain first-hand experience and a better understanding of the Community, its institutions and policies, in the hope that this will be of benefit to them both professionally and personally. Many participants in the EUVP are selected specifically because of their professional interest in the Community, for example as politicians, government officials, journalists or academics. For this reason, it is inevitable that a significant number will have previously visited a Member State. This does not, however, necessarily mean that they will have received any in-depth exposure to the Community’s institutions. In the case of participants from neighbouring countries in Europe, it is also, perhaps, inevitable that a higher percentage will have previously visited Member States. The EUVP steering committee, under the co-chairmanship of a vice-president of the Parliament and a member of the Commission, will not endorse for participation in the programme an EUVP nominee with extensive or recent experience of visiting the Community