- Crucial Test is at Hand on Controls Needed for Defence Programmes," and began:Nearly a year after the free world decided to end the frenzied scramble for commodities that followed the Korean invasion, the International Materials Conference, which symbolized that effort, faces Its First Major Crisis.

The Council noted that in less than a month the EU Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina will undertake Its First Crisis management operation under ESDP and welcomed the double-hatting of the High Representative as EU Special Representative and his role in the EUPM chain of command.

The EU has agreed to invite Russia as an observer to Its First Crisis management exercises.

Although I have always been opposed to the single currency, I have said that I thought it would survive for quite some time, and that it would survive Its First Crisis but probably not its second.