Brussels - The population of the European Union increased to nearly half a billion in 2008, thanks largely to a rise in net migration, figures released Monday in Brussels show.

According to the bloc's statistical office, Eurostat, the 27 countries that form the EU will have a combined population of 499.7 million people on January 1, up 2.2 million from
2007. About a third of this rise is attributable to the number of immigrants entering the bloc.

And with the accession of Slovakia into the eurozone, 328.6 million people will be sharing the bloc's common currency, the euro, next year.

Brussels  - Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen confirmed on Friday that Ireland will hold a second referendum on the EU reform, or Lisbon, treaty in 2009, having received assurances at the EU summit in Brussels that Ireland will retain its commissioner.

Ireland, which rejected the Lisbon treaty in a referendum in June, has been under pressure to hold a second vote, and has held that the country must retain its EU commissioner despite a plan to reduce the size of the Brussels commission, in exchange for a second referendum.

Brussels  - French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrapped up his six-month stint as European Union chairman Friday with a brilliant diplomatic juggling act at the bloc's end-of-year summit in Brussels.

Mediating through 14 hours of tough negotiations with his 26 EU colleagues, "speedy" Sarkozy succeeded in sealing a landmark deal on climate change, brokered a massive economic recovery plan and ended six months of institutional deadlock by convincing Ireland to hold a fresh referendum on the reforming Lisbon Treaty.

Brussels, Dec. 12 : Police in Brussels have reportedly foiled a suicide bomb attack on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown by arresting fourteen suspected al-Qaeda terrorists here on Thursday.

According to The Sun, the sweep came just hours before a summit meeting between the heads of 27 EU countries in Brussels.

Brown was due to meet EU leaders.

One of the suspects is believed to be a suicide bomber mounting an operation "from which he was not expected to come back".

Brussels - European Union leaders are set to agree on a 200- billion-euro (265-billion-dollar) shot in the arm for the bloc's struggling economy, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said Thursday.

"I expect that we will reach an agreement on the volumes proposed by the European Commission," Juncker, who also acts as the powerful chairman of the group of countries that share the euro, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Brussels - European Union leaders are heading for a deal on making a pledge to cut greenhouse-gas emissions legally binding, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday.

But the proposed compromise would be disastrous for world efforts to stop global warming, seriously damaging the EU's own credibility, environmental group WWF said in a statement.

"We are heading towards a deal. Italy is obtaining everything it requested," Berlusconi told journalists on the fringes of the EU's year-end summit in Brussels.