European Commission
President José Manuel Barroso

After the meeting with Prime Minister Pikrammenos, President Barroso said: "Mr Panagiotis's government has a clearly defined yet vital role to play in the coming weeks." He recalled the Commission's strong desire that Greece should remain a member of the euro area and that it will continue to do everything in its power for this to happen. The President underlined the importance of Greece maintaining the commitments it has made, including implementing the structural reforms that are essential...

Sunday 20 May: following the G8, President José Manuel Barroso travelled to the NATO summit in Chicago to attend the meeting of the North Atlantic Council, the principal political decision-making body within NATO. On Monday 21 May, President Barroso represented the EU on NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) meeting on Afghanistan. The President confirmed that Afghanistan remains a priority for the EU both now and beyond 2014. "My message here today is that we will...

Updated 21 May After Saturday's G8 working session on the global economy Presidents Barroso and Van Rompuy said in a joint statement: "We were comforted to hear that all leaders agree on the need to take action to boost confidence and nurture recovery in response to the current economic challenges we face. We had a candid and open discussion with the other G8 members on the situation in the Euro area. On-going EU discussions and measures taken to generate growth,...

Extracts of the message: "We would like to congratulate Mr. Nikolić on his election as President of Serbia. We also wish to congratulate the people of Serbia on their elections on 6 and 20 May which were competitive and peaceful. In these elections the Serbian people have given a very clear signal of support to the continued European orientation of government policy. Serbia entered these elections having freshly been granted candidate country status. Its leadership has now...