The UK Unionist leader and Euro candidate, Mr Bob McCartney, has accused the Ulster Unionist Party of being "terrified" of his election campaign. Mr McCartney said the UUP would be opening an office in his North Down Westminster constituency today with the party's MEP, Mr Jim Nicholson, in attendance.
"At last the UUP is finally opening an office in North Down. I've had one for four years," Mr McCartney said. "It's no accident that this office is being opened in the week before the Euro election.
"For a candidate who, according to David Trimble has no chance of success, I'm generating a new peak of political terror in the minds of Ulster Unionist leaders."
The Alliance leader and Euro candidate, Mr Sean Neeson, called for the election to be fought primarily on "bread and butter issues". He said he did not want the election to be turned into a referendum on the implementation of the Belfast Agreement. But the electorate still knew that "a Vote for Alliance will nevertheless be clearly seen as a vote for implementation in full".
SDLP Assembly member for South Down Mr P.J. Bradley accused Sinn Fein of misinformation in its election literature. "In one pamphlet they talk about the parties who have failed in the past. They have of course conveniently overlooked the fact that they are one of the longest established parties on this island and in spite of that they have delivered nothing."
SDLP candidate and party leader Mr John Hume said membership of the euro would be good for the North.
"It is time we faced up to the challenge that the euro provides and extend the full benefits of membership to Northern Ireland," he said. Sinn Fein's Euro-candidate, Mr Mitchel McLaughlin, called for a "radical overhaul of the Common Agricultural Policy".
He said incomes from farms in the North had fallen by almost two-thirds in two years. The North's Department of Agriculture reckoned that up to a third of farmers would have left full-time agriculture by the year 2005.