Names for new century

Date: 23/01/1997

The millennium is certainly focusing minds in the European Commission, where there are already three programmes with catchy sounding names linked to the turn of the century.

So far we have Budget Commissioner Erkki Liikanen's SEM 2000 (Sound and Efficient Management), a strategy to improve the institution's accounting and administration.

Then Commission President Jacques Santer introduced Agenda 2000, a convenient title encapsulating the EU's major turn-of-the-century challenges of enlargement, policy reform and the multi-annual budget package.

And now we have MAP 2000 (Modernisation of Administration and Personnel), the brainchild of Steffen Smidt, the new director-general of DGIX.