Suspicious circumstances

Date: 26/06/1997

Security for the Amsterdam event managed to be both excessive and inadequate at the same time.

Among those intercepted thanks to the efficiency of the police arrangements were Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jacques Poos, who was seen acting suspiciously in the area where televised interviews were being conducted, and former Dutch Europe Minister Piet Dankert - one of the architects of the Maastricht Treaty - who was apprehended for walking around the press centre without a pass.

Yet about a dozen protesters managed to infiltrate the final summit press conference undetected and raise a rumpus over the failure of EU leaders to tackle environmental problems.

How did the troublemakers breach security? They masqueraded as journalists, of course, bringing the Fourth Estate into even more disrepute than normal.