We had two Strasbourg weeks in March. This is a device to maintain the quota demanded by the French. For once my journey for the second week goes smoothly and almost to time.

On arrival at my office in the European Parliament I find our daily press summary which begins with a print-out from Conservative Home. I am not a regular reader of/ visitor to this website, partly because I have enough to do without being glued to a computer and partly because they have been unhelpfully hostile in the past.

This time I did read the report of a visit by one of their editors to Brussels to see how we work or, presumably, find out more of what we get up to. The piece demonstrated clearly the benefit of going to see for yourself. His “biggest surprise was the realisation that many MEPs work very, very hard indeed”.

He was depressed to learn “that what happens in the European Union matters”. From which he drew the conclusion that “as long as we are members of the EU, we should be fully engaged and seek to get our own way”. And that, dear reader, is precisely what we Conservative MEPs think and try to do.

My main piece of work on the Monday was to play my part in the trialogue negotiations between Parliament and Council on the third energy package of measures to complete the liberalisation of electricity and gas markets. I am Rapporteur on ACER – the Regulation to establish the Agency for the Co-operation of Energy Regulators. The meeting began at 7pm and ended up in the early hours.

By way of background let me explain that we in the UK are on the side of the angels and are really the model for what the European Commission seeks to establish throughout the EU. The other side of the coin is that a number of other Member States don’t want their own cosy arrangements changed so that, horror of horrors, they have to open up to competition. These countries are a minority but a blocking minority so we have to find a compromise (the usual story in European matters). Another critical factor is that the Czechs hold the Council Presidency and started the process from a position of inexperience and inflexibility which took us a little time to loosen up.

The key issue is ownership unbundling or banning the ownership of transmission systems, eg the grid, by any generator or supplier in a vertically integrated utility which can distort competition. The French and Germans each have their own forms of such integrated ownership and are most reluctant to change.

The reason I took the Agency Report was my view that we would not break down these forms of monopoly via frontal assault through directives because of the blocking minority


 

and that the next best option was to give the regulators as
much power as we could to do the job in a different way. And this has been the way things turned out though only time will tell if the concessions extracted from the Council will be enough. I have to admit I enjoyed the negotiation.

The big event of the week according to some commentators was due to be the appearance of Gordon Brown in the plenary on Tuesday afternoon. Many MEPs from other countries expressed great surprise at his coming because normally only the head of government of the Presidency country gets to speak in the chamber. G20 didn’t seem to wash as a justification

I missed his speech as I had a meeting about another package of legislation we are handling on my committee but I hear he was outshone and put down most effectively by my Conservative colleague Dan Hannan MEP. I can’t help remembering a pop song about a science fiction character called Flash Gordon who had only minutes to save the world. He did manage to save the world in the film but don’t hold your breath for “the great clunking fist” emulating him. Well done the Governor of the Bank of England for speaking out about the parlous position of public finances under this Labour Government.

Another event which did stir the emotions had a happy outcome. A Green MEP from Denmark presented a report from the Petitions Committee on the scandal that is land grab urbanisation in Spain. I and colleagues have received many desperate stories of Britons who bought or built homes in Valencia in good faith only to have them snatched away or even bulldozed by some very curious legal fancy footwork.

Our Spanish colleagues within the EPP-ED got very hot under the collar, demanding that the whole group demonstrate solidarity with them by voting this report down. They even accused we Conservatives of trying to do them down politically because we will not be re-joining the group after the election in June. Spanish stiff-necked pride is strong stuff when in full flood.

At any rate we were not alone in the group on this issue and evidently there were similar ructions in the Socialist group. The outcome was the alternative Spanish motions were dismissed and the main Report adopted by a large majority. I hope this will give comfort to the victims and keep the pressure on the Spanish Authorities to do something.

Finally the Czech Government fell during the week following a lost vote of confidence at home. So it was just as well we concluded negotiations on the energy package on the Monday!