News from BBC and Euronews

French fishermen protest set to catch on across Europe

The French fishermens' fuel strikes have continued and look set to spread around the European coastline. In France, a 110 million- euro government aid offer last week was not enough to end the blocking of ports and fuel depots by fishermen. A union in La Rochelle narrowly voted to continue the protest, hoping for the support of their European counterparts. Their colleagues in Spain have joined the strike action, with the Portuguese, Italian, Greek and Maltese set to wade in by the end of the week. French President Nicolas Sarkozy turned to tax changes as a solution. He told a French radio station: "I will ask our European partners: if the price of oil continues to rise, shouldn't we suspend the VAT tax part of oil prices?" But the European Commission disagrees, saying changing taxation to combat inflated prices sends the wrong message to oil-producing countries; namely that they could increase prices. In any case, the Commission added, such a decision would need the agreement of all 27 EU members.

Fuel protests erupt in Europe

With fuel prices soaring across Europe, British lorry drivers have taken their protest against the high costs to the door of the British government. Hundreds of trucks descended on London in lengthy convoys that caused widespread traffic disruption. The hauliers say they are struggling to stay in business: "I had three trucks of my own but come January I had to get rid of them with the rising cost of fuel and everything, so I sold them. I had three really good drivers and that's the bit that hurt me, to get rid of my drivers. But, because, at the end of the day, if I didn't the company was going to go under," said Martin Archcock, an owner/driver. Bosses like him want the government to give them a fuel rebate as essential users to keep the country moving. Britain has the highest fuel tax in the EU and the price surge is hitting drivers particularly hard. The cost of diesel has risen by a third since this time last year. The protest culminated with the handover of a petition at Downing Street. Under-fire Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be mindful that similar action over fuel costs dented his predecessor Tony Blair's popularity. Leaders across Europe may well have been watching events in the UK with a wary eye

EU slow to harmonise missing children alerts

Brussels continues to urge all the EU countries to create a harmonised missing children alert system. The proposed common EU helpline 116 000, for instance, is still only operable in Greece and Hungary. Francis Jacob, the chairman of Missing Children Europe on Sunday appealed for more energetic effort from decisionmakers: "My final message is that in a Europe without borders, a Europe with great use of the Internet, the availabilty of fast and easy travel, the problems of missing children, of sexually exploited children, increasingly require a European approach. We need action not words!" International Missing Children's Day also aimed to send a message of hope and solidarity to parents who do not know what has become of their children. The NGO federation Missing Children Europe said there were more than 3,500 child disappearances in Belgium alone in 2006, and France recorded 45,000 cases.

EU tougher against illegal immigrants

New European Union rules have been approved against illegal immigrants. They could be held in custody for up to 18 months now, children included. It will be up to a government to decide to grant asylum or deport the illegal immigrants, and whether to give access to a lawyer. The provision for holding them is designed to deal with paperwork in case there is no take-back agreement with the detainee's country. The law now needs the European Parliament's vote, but analyst Sergio Carrera is worried about the implications: "This directive will promote at the European level a European standard of 18 months for the detention of illegal migrants, something which in my view is completely disproportionate." The draft was approved by the EU ambassadors of the bloc's 27 members. Analyst Elizabeth Collett is concerned over the direction Europe is taking: ''If you look at Italy right now, there is a certain trend towards the idea that illegal migration is is a crime, that suggestion that migrants who crossed the border illegally might be imprisoned for four years is actually quite a change, and against a number of well-established international principles that actually crossing the border cannot be a criminal act in itself." The European Commission estimates some eight million illegal migrants live in the EU. These protesters in Brussels demanding the right to stay have been on hunger strike for three weeks. Brussels said the new law was the only way to convince governments and voters to accept legal migrants

New look at EU agriculture

A European reform plan to help farmers respond to growing demand for food looks at doing away with numerous support schemes, especially for larger farms. More of the EU's aid money would go into rural development projects. Safety-net purchase of commodity stocks with public funds at fixed prices could count on being phased out, along with farm subsidies still linked to production volumes. That is under a so-called "health check" of EU farm policy, proposed by the bloc's Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel. She said: "It is all about freeing farmers to meet growing demand and respond quickly to (the market)... and give (them) the tools to handle the new challenges they face, such as climate change." Boel's plan will now be discussed by EU farm ministers. An agreement is supposed to be reached in November. There would be small annual increases in milk production quotas ahead of the planned abolition of the quota system in 2015. Her suggestion to place maximum fixed limits on subsidies for Europe's largest farms has brought opposition especially from Britain, Germany and the Czech Republic. Also under Boel's plan, leaving ten percent of land unused each year, to rest the soil, would no longer be required.

US chlorine-washed chicken pecking at EU door

Coming soon to a supermarket near you: chlorine- disinfected chicken, that is if an initiative by Brussels is successful. The European Commission will present its ideas later this month aimed at lifting an EU ban on American chicken imports. It has been in place since 1997 because U.S. poultry producers wash their chickens in a chlorine solution not allowed in the EU. European public health concerns have lately been toned down, in the view of EU food safety experts. But France wants the ban kept. Following an allegation that French chicken exported to Saudi Arabia used the American chlorine method, France cried foul. Brussels supports the French denial: "According to the information available today to the Commission, no member States are using this practice for export," a spokesperson said. The Transatlantic Economic Council, set up last year to cut red tape and boost trade between the EU and the United States, has been working to find a solution before the EU-U.S. summit in Ljubljana in June