SOUTH WEST FIRST
LETTER FROM STRASBOURG
February 2003
TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
The sky was blue, the sun was
shining, the air was crisp, the plane was nearly on time and I arrived
in Strasbourg in good time and in good order.
Some mistake surely?
UNITED IN SYMPATHY
At the opening of the session at
5 p.m. we stand for a minutes silence following the latest assassination
in Spain by ETA terrorists. Our
Spanish colleagues like these gestures of sympathy and solidarity but I
suspect the hard men don’t give a fig.
LEAKED DOCUMENTS?
The agenda for the week includes
a number of items from my Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy
Committee (ITRE). First is
a report on the proposal for a co-decision (jointly by the Council of
Ministers from Member State governments and the European Parliament)
directive on the re-use and commercial exploitation of public sector
documents.
REVENUE WAVES
We have been on the receiving
end of a fair amount of lobbying by museums, libraries and bodies like
the Ordnance Survey who were concerned this measure could undermine
their ability to charge for exploiting their assets to raise revenue.
I await with interest the next wave of correspondence to see
whether the vote outcome allayed some of their fears.
INFORMATION FOR ALL
Other reports covered a proposal
for a Council decision on adopting a multi-annual programme (2003-2005)
for monitoring eEurope, dissemination of good practices and improvement
of network and information security (MODINIS); the full roll-out of
third generation mobile communications; and the Commission Communication
entitled eEurope 2005: An information society for all – An action plan
to be presented in view of the Seville European Council meeting in June
2002.
PERILS OF PROGRESS
These reports deal with matters
like the security of email and other electronic communications; the
health concerns raised by some over exposure to electromagnetic fields
resulting from mobile communications and from fixed aerial masts in
particular; and proposals for so-called platform sharing to permit
several mobile networks use the same infrastructure
thereby reducing the number and cost of masts as well as speeding up
availability of the third generation (3G) networks.
HELPING OTHERS
During the week I attended an
informal trialogue meeting between representatives of the Greek
Presidency of the Council, the Commission and the Parliament to discuss
aspects of the Second Reading of a proposal for a programme
to combat aids, malaria and tuberculosis (TB) in lesser developed
countries.
I had a meeting with the member of the ITRE
committee secretariat to discuss the next moves on the Measuring
Instruments Directive for which I am Rapporteur.
NUCLEAR SAFETY
I met Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) to
discuss the prospects for the forthcoming
nuclear package of measures covering general safety standards for
the operation of nuclear power plants, for financing decommissioning of
same NPPs and requirements for safe permanent disposal of radioactive
waste material. In particular they were interested in my views as
coordinator for the EPP-ED (European Peoples Party-European Democrats of
which we Conservative MEPs are allied members) Group on ITRE
as to who might do all the reports.
POWER READING
I also met with a delegation
from UKRep, the UK Permanent Representation to the EU, and the DTI (Dept
of Trade & Industry) to discuss the Common Position of the Council
on the Gas and Electricity Market liberalisation Directive and what we
will do in Second Reading. Much progress has been made toward completing
the opening up of European energy markets and the Council unanimously
adopted the text which puts pressure on us in the Parliament to adopt
without further amendment. We
shall see soon because we have just three months to give our opinion.
DIVISIONS WITHIN NATO & EU
Of course, outside my committee
interests, the big story underlying everything was the Iraq situation,
the divisions within the EU and during the week, the divisions within
NATO. I might add that it
all illustrates vividly the extreme difficulty of establishing and
maintaining a common foreign and security policy.
The dreamers of European integration have come up against the
rock of differing national interests.
LEAVING THE GULAG
As I came into the Parliament on
the Friday morning to collect my papers and clear my office prior to
setting off on the journey, I observed the tightest security of the
week, with vehicles being mirror searched underneath and, for the first
time ever, the gate into the courtyard inside the tower was actually
shut. It makes the place
look even more like a gulag and seems ironic that they only started
bothering after we had finished the session.
THE GREAT UNWASHED
Back home on Saturday, before I
had the pleasure of watching the satisfying pair of rugby results of
Italy beating Wales, and England defeating France, I observed the peace
protest march in London. It seemed pretty much a combination of the
great unwashed scruffy left and many members of the Muslim Association
of Britain and it felt just like going back in time to the old ‘protest
politics’of the Left.
How ironic they are protesting against a government of the once
upon a time party of the Left.
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