Leo van Doesburg

How can a country, that refused abortion three times by referendums, be pressured to legalize it in the name of a Convention which does not enshrine a right to abortion? In Europe, Ireland is a symbol of resistance against abortion.  Nevertheless, Ireland is on the point of giving in to the concerted pressure of the Council of Europe and the pro-abortion lobbies. Irish people have always been firmly opposed to abortion.   Since the 1980s, they have rejected the legalization of abortion three times, while affording equal constitutional protection to the life of the unborn child and that of the mother.  Abortion is therefore always prohibited, except when doctors consider it necessary to save the life of the mother .   However, the Council of Europe is at the heart of a campaign aiming to impose abortion ‘from the top’ onto people who refused it ‘from the bottom’ three times, by referendums in 1983, 1992 and 2002. (Article by: G régor Puppinck. P...

Family Policy Conference of European Christian Political Foundation & Solidarna Polska (Program at ECPF website ) European examples and policy options for support for families as investment in Europe’s future. The ECPF and Solidarna Polska warmly invite you to participate in their joint family policy conference. The focus of this conference is on how government policies can support families. The conference offers the opportunity to hear from experts on what the European trends are and which practical policies would be supportive for families. The experts will focus on various fields like the pressure on the family, child benefits systems and the balance between work and family life.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Poland and Sweden have in a joint strategy paper indicated the EU is unlikely to invite any of its post-Soviet neighbours to join the bloc in the next 10 years. Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski and Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt set out their vision for the EU's future relations with neighbouring countries in a letter on 6 October to EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and neighbourhood commissioner Stefan Fuele. The letter noted that Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine could one day become EU members, unlike countries in north Africa and the Middle East. "Some [countries bordering the EU] are European and thus enjoy special status in accordance with the treaties, others will remain neighbours of Europe," it said. But the four-page-letter nowhere said the EU should give the group 'an enlargement perspective.' It instead set out an everything-but-enlargement vision in which the six gradually adopt the E...

(Picture: message on the remains of the Berlin Wall, East Gallery) On 20th April, Easter Monday, I left Romania again for an exciting new trip. Last time I wrote my impressions about Armenia and Georgia. This is my last destination from that trip: Warsaw! In the early morning, together with our friends from the Christian Democratic Movement of Georgia (CDM), I boarded the flight to Warsaw where I was to take part in the meeting organized by the "East European Bureau for Christian Democratic parties" from the former Soviet countries. This is an agreement between the Christian Democratic parties of Armenia, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Moldovia and Ukraine. The founders of the Christian Democratic party of Russia were observers. This meeting was organized within the conference of the European People's Party. At the airport in Vienna where we had to change planes, I saw Gevorg who just arrived from Yerevan. Unfortunately he had to wait for another plane w...