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 | | Monday, 22 October, 2001, 16:01 GMT 17:01 UK Prodi seething after summit row  Body language: Verhofstadt is long-winded says Prodi By Europe correspondent William Horsley While the European Union is striving to present a united front in its response to the dangers of organised terrorism, a highly public disagreement has emerged at the heart of the EU's decision-making process. Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, has revealed that he felt he was sidelined during last Friday's informal EU summit in Belgium, and is deeply dissatisfied. The summit covered Europe's response to terrorism as well as internal EU business. This is a clear case of personal pique which risks doing real harm to the authority of the Commission at a time when it has already lost much of the initiative to the EU's national leaders. Request for time Mr Prodi's spokesman, Jonathan Faull, told journalists that Mr Prodi deliberately stayed away from the final press conference alongside the meeting's host, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofdtadt, because he felt he was being left out of the presentation of EU decisions at the summit.
But at the first press conference in Ghent Mr Prodi again felt he had been sidelined and Mr Verhofstadt had been too long-winded. So Mr Prodi skipped the second and final meeting with the press. Earlier Mr Prodi had also caused embarrassment by complaining, and then withdrawing his complaint, about the exclusive pre-summit meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the leaders of France and Germany to discuss military tactics over Afghanistan. Leadership doubts The episode has raised new questions about Mr Prodi's leadership. Recently he announced that because the EU had grown out of touch with its citizens he was launching a campaign to make its workings more open and understandable. However, his spokesman could not explain the logic of Mr Prodi trying to take the lead in that campaign by absenting himself from setpiece press conferences like the one at the summit. | | See also:  Internet links: The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites Top Europe stories now:  Links to more Europe stories are at the foot of the page. | |
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