Greek drama to dominate EU summit

23 June 2011 Last updated at 11:45 GMT Greek PM George Papandreou (left) faces tough questions from EU colleagues The threat of a Greek debt default undermining the euro overshadows an EU summit getting under way in Brussels.

The 27 EU leaders are expected to reaffirm their determination to defend the single currency.

But the BBC's Europe editor says there is little they can do until the Greek parliament votes on a new package of tough austerity measures next week.

Many economists think a Greek default is inevitable sooner or later - and that would hit confidence in the euro.

Prime Minister David Cameron is likely to insist again that the UK - which did not contribute to the first Greek bail-out last year - should not be involved in any second Greek rescue, our Europe editor Gavin Hewitt says.

Migration pressures are also on the agenda at the two-day summit.

The key question is whether, following an influx of migrants from North Africa this year, the EU's open borders policy should in exceptional circumstances be suspended.

Leaders are also expected to endorse and set a date for Croatia's accession to the EU - likely to be July 2013.

Anger on Athens streets

Greece's EU partners are anxious to see the Greek parliament approve a five-year austerity package of tax increases and spending cuts worth 28bn euros (?25bn; $40bn).

Continue reading the main story June 28: Greek parliament to vote on a new austerity packageJuly 3: Eurozone deadline: will sign off latest bail-out payment to Greece - 12bn euros - if austerity package has passedJuly 15: Default deadline: Without the 12bn euros it needs to make debt repayments, Greece will defaultGreece will not get the next instalment of its 110bn-euro bail-out unless it adopts the measures. Yet many Greeks are angry, believing that their country is being sacrificed for the sake of the euro, and they have held mass protests and strikes against the EU's stringent bail-out conditions.

Trade unions in Greece have called a two-day general strike to coincide with next week's debate in parliament on the package.

Both private and public sector unions are protesting against the cuts.

Eurozone ministers recognise that Greece will need another big EU lifeline. On Sunday they agreed to put together a second bail-out package worth 120bn euros to fund Greece into late 2014.

In an interview on the BBC's Hardtalk programme French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe spoke of "a very strong determination in the [EU] member states to save what has been done in the past 50 years".

"We've no choice. If the eurozone disappeared the EU itself would be in danger - we can't afford such a situation," he said, insisting that "there will not be any default of Greece".

Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt told the BBC that the Greek crisis was an opportunity for the 17-nation eurozone to build a closer economic union. He now leads the liberal bloc (ALDE) in the European Parliament.

"They need to create an economic union next to the monetary union, because monetary union cannot work alone," he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

"To have 17 different governments, with 17 different economic strategies, with 17 different markets, that doesn't work in monetary union.

"They have no choice. They are maybe not courageous enough to make the choice today, but I am very sure that this Greek crisis is not finished."

View the original article here

Branagh in eight-hour radio drama

27 May 2011 Last updated at 16:00 GMT The eight-hour adaptation will be broadcast over a week in September Kenneth Branagh is to star in an eight-hour adaptation of Vasily Grossman's wartime epic Life And Fate for BBC Radio 4.

John Sessions and Olivier-award winner Sara Kestelman will also star in the adaptation set at the Battle of Stalingrad, during World War II.

The 1959 novel charts the fate of the Russian city.

Radio 4 will devote all of its drama strands to the adaptation over a week from 18 September.

Apart from long-running soap The Archers, every regular drama slot on the station like the Afternoon Play and Woman's Hour drama will broadcast a part of the dramatisation.

Radio 4 will also tell the story of the author in a documentary on his work as well as readings from his front-line journalism as one of Russia's most distinguished war correspondents.

"I'm thrilled that Radio 4's dramatisation of Life And Fate will bring this remarkable but little known work to a wider audience," said Gwyneth Williams, controller of Radio 4.

"The novel's underlying message - the ability of the human spirit to endure in the face of authoritarian rule and war - is as relevant today as it was 70 years ago."

Life and Fate has been hailed as one of the most important Russian novels of the 20th century.

Its comparison of Stalinism with Nazism was considered by Soviet authorities to be so dangerous that the manuscript was seized by the KGB.

Although Grossman was told his book would not be published for at least 200 years, the work was smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm and eventually published in the West.

The Radio 4 drama will be preceded by a series of free public events to discuss the novel including a special recording of Start The Week at St Peter's College, Oxford University, on 9 September.

View the original article here