LUXEMBOURG: Luxembourg is in mourning following the death on Monday of the dowager Grand Duchess Josephine-Charlotte, with flags flying at half-mast until her funeral on Saturday. The Grand Duchess's death, which came after a long illness, was the second misfortune to hit Luxembourg's EU presidency within a fortnight.
The first few days of the tiny Grand Duchy's six months in charge of the EU were overshadowed by the Asian tsunami crisis and the prime minister, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, has found it difficult to attract Europe's attention for his agenda of boosting economic reform, remodelling the Stability and Growth Pact and striking a deal on the EU's next seven-year budget plan.
It is hardly Mr Juncker's fault that the prospect of more regular visits to Luxembourg causes many hearts in Brussels to sink.
Most EU officials and journalists see little of the country outside the bleak conference centre where all meetings of EU ministers are held during April, June and October each year. The three-hour journey from Brussels is a joyless experience, especially in a slow train with no dining car.
Many of those who live in Luxembourg describe life there as idyllic, boasting of a seven-minute commute to work and rhapsodising about fine restaurants and cheap alcohol and cigarettes. At a dinner party in Brussels last week, however, one EU official went pale as she recalled the three years she spent in Luxembourg. "It was the worst experience of my life. You would go to the cinema on a Sunday night and find nobody else there. Don't believe anyone who doesn't tell you it's a dreadful place."
Others grumble that Luxembourgish, the language spoken by most Luxembourgers, effectively excludes outsiders from participating fully in the national life.
Luxembourg's government hopes to persuade its official visitors to linger a little longer in the Grand Duchy, even offering restaurant vouchers to journalists who attend presidency meetings.
Few outsiders doubt that the presidency will be a success, despite the fact that Luxembourg has fewer than 80 full-time diplomats. Mr Juncker, who is also his country's finance minister, is among the EU's most experienced and engaging politicians.
Luxembourg's ambition to find a deal on the EU's 2007-2013 budget plan by June is a formidable one but if anyone can persuade EU leaders to agree an early deal, it is Mr Juncker.
Progress is less likely on the Government's bid to have Irish recognised as an official, working language of the EU. The campaign for Irish has been complicated by Spain's request for a number of its regional languages to be given official status. Some EU governments fear any change to the language regime could prompt further requests for recognition of minority languages.
Luxembourg is wary of promoting the cause of Irish, not least because Luxembourgish is neither a treaty language nor an official language of the EU, despite being spoken by 90 per cent of the country's citizens.
One Luxembourg minister acknowledged this week that success for Irish could create political difficulties for his government. "How can we explain that our language, which we all speak, has no status while your language is made official, even though you don't speak it," he said.