The Week In Strasbourg:It is the 50th anniversary this week of the European flag - blue with a circle of 12 gold stars - and a low-key ceremony at the Palais de l'Europe, the Council of Europe's headquarters in Strasbourg, marked the event on Wednesday.
As teenagers gathered to place 12 giant stars on the lawn, the assembled few were told the flag had become "the symbol par excellence of the European identity". No such unity was evident among some Irish MEPs on a number of key issues this session, however.
The "big" story according to every press officer in Strasbourg was Reach, though newsdesks across Europe were lukewarm at best. The Reach regulation - on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals - was pushed through at its first reading yesterday morning, albeit with a staggering 1,500 amendments.
When Reach comes into force - sometime towards the end of 2007 at the earliest and after member states have their say at the Council of Ministers - it will see the establishment of a European chemicals agency.
Any chemical put on the market in any form since 1981 will have to be tested and assessed for safety, and all details registered with the agency.
This means the components of everything from the teat on a baby's bottle to pharmaceuticals to MP3 players will have to be tested and registered, whether manufactured in the EU or not, before it can be sold here.
The reasoning behind it is that those working with chemicals need protection, as do consumers and the environment.
The regulation's champion in the European Parliament, Socialist Guido Scoddi, was warning all who would listen that MEPs must not be threatened by "unbelievable pressure" from "big business" to water it down.
Insisting he was not coming under such pressure, Fianna Fáil MEP Liam Aylward was, however, insisting a "balance must be struck". Reach is a good thing, he stressed, but he doesn't want to see the requirements on industry to be so burdensome as to "cripple" them.
"The chemical and pharmaceutical industries in Ireland alone were valued at over €37.4 billion in exports in 2004," he said in parliament. In an interview with Irish network radio, he referred to the 40,000 Irish employed in these industries.
His comments on radio were immediately taken up by Sinn Féin's Dublin MEP, Mary Lou McDonald. In a press statement she said: "I would like him to stand over his claims that the proposals will lead to the loss of up to 40,000 Irish jobs."
Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle called for all hazardous chemicals added to cigarettes to come within the scope of Reach. To some sniggers in parliament during her passionate speech, she said: "Everyone who breathes in tobacco smoke should be aware that they are in fact ingesting a cocktail of dangerous chemicals that has the potential to kill."
Against expectations, however, her amendment was passed.
Meanwhile, her party colleague Mairéad McGuinness had something of a success on Tuesday when she doorstepped EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson with a poster from the Irish Farmers' Association, used at its march against him in Dublin last week.
"He unfurled it [the poster] and kind of looked at it," Ms McGuinness said later. "I think he was a bit exhausted. He looked at it and looked up and said, 'I don't think they have much to worry about'." The talks in Hong Kong, it seems, are going "badly", he said.