Mubarak meets EU Parliament chief

President Hosni Mubarak yesterday presided over separate meetings with cabinet ministers and the visiting Speaker of the EU Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported.In the first meeting, which was attended by the Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and the Ministers of Finance, Awqaf (religious endowments), Family and Population, Information, Health, and Local Development, the Government's family planning strategies and repercussions of the population increase on citizens' quality of life were discussed. Over the past 28 years, the number of Egyptians has doubled, with a third of the population now below the age of 15. The population increases by 1.3 million every year and will soon increase by two million a year. At its current pace, the population is expected to more than double by 2050 to reach 160 million, in a country with an inhabitable surface of 45,000 square kilometres - roughly equal to Switzerland.Later in the day, Mubarak held talks with Buzek that focused on bolstering parliamentary ties between Egypt and the European Union Parliament.The Speaker of the People's Assembly (the lower house of the Egyptian Parliament), Ahmed Fathi Sorour, has attended the Mubarak-Buzek talks, which also dealt with enhancing cooperation between Egypt and the European bloc in all domains.