SOUTH WEST FIRST
LETTER FROM STRASBOURG - JANUARY 2002
(2)
MID-TERM RESHUFFLE
The January Plenary week in
Strasbourg is definitely atypical.
It marks the beginning of the second half of the parliamentary
term with elections and/or appointments afresh for virtually all posts
in the Parliament from President down.
The mid-term reshuffle, you might say.
RULES
TO FOLLOW
The whole process, with the odd
exception, is run under d'Hondt rules whereby posts are allocated to
political groups according to their relative numerical strength. Our group, the centre right European Peoples Party - European
Democrats (EPP-ED), is the largest with 232 MEPs and is top of the
pecking order.
EXPLAINING
THE PARTIES
After that come the Party of
European Socialists (PES) with 179; the European Liberal Democrat and
Reformists with 53, the Greens/European Free Alliance (a mishmash of
regional parties such as the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists in a
curious link up with the Greens) with 45; the European United
Left/Nordic Green Left (EUL/NGL or communists for short) 44; the Union
for Europe of the Nations (UEN) 22; the Europe of Democracies and
Diversities (another ragbag of a group containing whats left of the UKIP)
(EDD) with 18; and finally the Independents or Non Inscrits (NI) with 34
including the Rev. Ian Paisley, an ex UKIP and an ex Labour MEP (of
which more anon).
WHEELING
AND DEALING
By applying a mathematical
formula based on these numbers (which I haven't the space to explain) a
pecking order list is established.
Each group uses its turn to bid for whichever post remaining
vacant that it favours. In
this way jobs are supposed to be distributed fairly among all groups.
A similar process takes place before hand, within each group,
between the different national delegations belonging to it, so as to
determine priorities ahead of the actual share-out.
I leave it to your imagination to picture all the lobbying,
jockeying, wheeling and dealing that goes on.
CAUSE
TO SPECULATE
The big job is President.
This is a combination of Speaker, Managing Director of the Board
and external representative spokesman for the Parliament.
At the beginning of this term in 1999, a deal was struck between
the EPP-ED and the ELDR, for the latter to support the former's
candidate and vice versa, at the halfway mark. This posed a problem for
Conservatives being a choice, this time round, between Irish Liberal
(the 'deal' candidate) or Scottish Labour.
Our policy was to observe the sanctity of the secret ballot and
say nowt, because there was a certain amount of speculation about what
we would do.
STRANGE
HAPPENINGS
Funny things happen.
The lifts indulged in one of their periodic pouts by ignoring
buttons pressed for down and going up or not moving at all, just when we
all needed to reach the hemicycle or chamber.
I got in a lift which displayed just such a will of its own, but
eventually it began to descend, stopping at every floor.
As it happens, both principal candidates got in, hotly pursued by
TV cameras, and engaged in forced friendly banter while I cringed in a
corner.
THE
DRAMA CONTINUES
It had been decided to allow
each of the five candidates five minutes speaking time before the secret
ballot. This was surely
intended to add to the theatre of the occasion as everyone must have
made up their mind how to vote long before.
Likewise, having a paper vote rather than an electronic one, was
more about stretching out the drama.
Anyway they spoke while the oldest member - doyen d'age - took
the chair. Mr Bonde
mentioned coming from room 007, Mr Cox talked about the gift of the gab
and kissing the blarney stone, Mr Onesta wanted Green reform and Mr
Wurtz made a pointed criticism of those who campaigned for reform in the
first round, yet were willing to do a deal with the candidate of the
right (liberal!) in the second. Three
speeches in English and two in French by the way.
POLITICAL
INTRIGUE
And so to the vote.
We were all issued with voting papers and envelopes and queued up
to drop the product of our efforts in the ballot box (made of clear
plastic in keeping with our determination to be transparent in our
proceedings), before heading off for coffee and a gossip about what
might happen next. A couple
of hours later smoke emerges and we hear the first result.
583 voted, 7 were spoiled papers so the absolute majority of
those voting required for victory was 292.
INCONCLUSIVE
RESULTS
It was Bonde 66, Cox 254, Martin
184, Onesta 37, Wurtz 42. The
surprise was the high showing for Mr Bonde, a Danish eurosceptic, whom
some Conservative MEPs were believed to support secretly.
Mr Wurtz graciously withdrew his candidacy and urged his EUL/NEL
colleauges to vote for the Socialist candidate in round two.
Mr Onesta was more enigmatic in saying he was sure his Green
colleagues would make an interesting vote.
ENDLESS
VOTING
So we voted again and waited
again. The second result
came in the afternoon and was Bonde 76, Cox 277, Martin 226.
Total votes 579, spoiled 13, required majority 290.
Mr Cox was making it the hard way and Mr Bonde was very pleased
to ask for some time in a room elsewhere (not 007 it would seem) to
discuss with his supporters what they should do now.
He obviously had such a good time that he forgot to come back in
time to withdraw his name so we had a further ballot with the same
candidates.
AT
LONG LAST
And at last, at the third time
of asking, white smoke emerged, the absolute majority was achieved and
Mr Cox was elected President. Voted
568, spoiled 18, Bonde 33, Cox 298, Martin 237, absolute majority 285.
NO
TIME WASTED
Next we turned to the question
of Vice-Presidents. As we need 14, you might be forgiven for thinking
that could mean interminable votes among dozens of eager candidates.
Not a bit of it, Mr d'Hondt clicked into action and hey presto,
there were just 14 candidates, no more and no less.
So that’s alright then, they are all declared elected.
However, we do have to vote so as to establish a ranking in
seniority which determines who does what.
The vice-presidents form the Bureau under the chairmanship of the
President, which is the body
which runs the Parliament, the managing board if you like.
NEED
TO IMPROVE
Because they were already
elected, the popularity poll was not so important, but afforded us the
opportunity to make a point or two, by plumping or voting for fewer
candidates to give them a higher rating and the others a lower one. The
defeated candidate for the Presidency, Mr Martin came top by a long way
with 300, while the Greens and EUL/NGL candidates Mr Onesta and Mr
Puerta came bottom with 148 and 120 respectively.
Sad to report, our Conservative candidate came close to bottom,
with the lowest score in the EPP-ED Group, possibly an indication of our
standing in general, or his in particular within the Group and the
Parliament. We must do
better.
POLITICAL
HOTHOUSE
These results were declared on
Wednesday morning. To
digress a moment, let me say that outside in the real world, I had a
very cold walk in to the Parliament that morning and wet underfoot too,
as it had snowed overnight. A
marked contrast with the hothouse of politics within.
Immediately after the results, we moved to vote for the Quaestors.
Quaestors deal with the day to day management of Members affairs
and act as a sort of shop steward for us vis a vis the officials who run
all the Parliament administration.
There are five of them, and although they are supposed to be
elected under d'Hondt considerations, there have been two independent
candidates elected in the previous two elections, an Irish MEP and a
Labour MEP.
TRYING
TO OBSTRUCT
However this time the Labour MEP
was not only not his PES Group nominee, but he had been suspended from
membership of that Group, so as to clear the way for two PES official
candidates. We Tories
happen to like this particular Quaestor, so many of us signed his
nomination papers as an Independent candidate.
The Socialist Group, knowing well that there was widespread
support for this independent candidate, had done all they could to
obstruct him and enforce their d'Hondt share of two places.
This obstruction included making a big song and dance about the
voting method because they somehow thought that the electronic system
might favour him. The
complaint raised by the Spanish leader of the Socialists was that
electronic voting on a list of names was not secret because members
sitting around you could see your screen (one for each seat) and tell
whom you had voted for.
WHO
SAID LIFE WAS FAIR
There was a vigorous debate and
a vote about it (by electronic vote naturally!), before we decided to go
ahead. The majority of
members were getting impatient after three rounds of President and one
round of Vice-President voting by secret paper ballot and wanted to get
on with it. So we shouted
and voted down the luckless Socialist leader.
Of course, he was actually right, you can see other colleagues'
screens and under present arrangements an asterisk appears by each name
you vote for, so it is not very secret.
But politics and life are not always fair and being right is no
guarantee you will get your way.
BUSINESS
AS USUAL
On the first vote, two of the
five places were filled by
candidates who received the requisite absolute majority of votes cast.
They were the two serving EPP-ED candidates. Then we had a debate as to whether to vote again straightaway
or wait until the next scheduled time at noon.
This time the socialists and the greens had their way and we
waited. However it did them
no good because second time round we elected a third EPP-ED candidate, a
Socialist and our independent chap.
Business as normal could resume.
SPANISH
ALLIES
The first piece of agenda
business was the statement from Prime Minister Azner on the Spanish
Presidency of the Council for the first six months of 2002.
His government is formed by the centre right Partido Popular,
members of EPP-ED and therefore allies of ours.
He impressed the Parliament with
what he said and the manner of saying it.
I would point out four points that he emphasised. First was the over-riding need to pursue the competitiveness
theme set out in the Lisbon, Stockholm and impending Barcelona summits
with the aim of making Europe the worlds most dynamic information
technology led economy by 2010. Next
was the importance of the major task immediately before us of carrying
out the enlargement process by bringing in new Member States from
central and eastern Europe successfully in 2004.
Third was the need to make progress with internal reforms and
come up with significant improvements in the way the EU operates from
the new Constitutional Convention being set up (as a variation on the
past practice of Inter Governmental Conferences) at Laaken.
The fourth theme dovetailed the understandable Spanish
pre-occupation with terrorism into the wider international issues of the
post September 11th campaign against global terrorism.
BURDENS
OF SMEs
These are hefty ambitious items
and the rhetoric was both effective and positive.
However Europe has a long track record of talking things up on a
grand scale while rarely actually achieving the stated aims.
I can think of the great emphasis laid on the importance of SMEs
(Small and Medium-sized Enterprises or small businesses to people like
me who have actually worked in and run a small business) for innovation
and job creation in virtually the same breath as announcements of yet
more social (they are very careful to avoid the correct word
-'socialist', to describe these measures) proposals which will add
administrative and financial burdens to SMEs that actually damage and
diminish inventiveness and employment.
SMOOTH
TRANSITION
So it is with the
competitiveness agenda, although many people believe that the advent of
the euro in note and cash reality will force both governments and
businesses in euroland to adapt to become more flexible and more
competitive. We shall see.
To be fair the transition to the euro seems to have gone very
smoothly, considering the scale of the exercise.
However the cynic in one expects prices to creep up by stealth.
I am even more sceptical about the chances of keeping the
enlargement process on schedule given the fundamental dilemma of the
budgetary implications. New Member States will want access to lots of
eurodosh for agriculture support and regional development, while
existing Member States are reluctant in the extreme to give up their
present levels of receipts (Spain foremost among them) and equally
unwilling to put their hands in taxpayers pockets for increased
contributions.
LESSONS
TO LEARN
Let me change track somewhat and
report a piece of good news. As
a result of a lot of groundwork put in by my colleague Robert Sturdy
(our then Agriculture spokesman) last year, with our EPP-ED colleagues
and other political groups, a proposal to establish a Temporary
Committee of Enquiry into the outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease was
forced onto the agenda, despite stiff socialist opposition led by Labour
MEPs. At the vote there was
a substantial majority in favour. This means that a long look at what happened, what went wrong
and lessons to learn will take place over the next nine to twelve
months. I hope this will
help make up for the deplorable way in which the Blair 'I'm in charge'
Government has sought to sweep the whole sorry saga under the carpet.
I wish Robert and our new Agriculture spokesman Neil Parish all
the best on the Committee.
INTERPRETING
COSTS
Finally a different issue and a
piece of information. The
Parliament Bureau has been considering some of the practical
implications of enlargement viz more languages.
They have come up with proposals that do not find favour with the
English booth. They are aimed at saving money by increasing the use of
'relay' interpreting, or working from the interpretation provided by
another language booth, and introducing 'retour' interpreting, or
working from the mother tongue into another language, rather than the
other way round, which is normal at present. At worst this could mean a phasing out of the English booth
as we move towards EuroEnglish as the lingue franca of Europe or a
significant loss of quality and time lag in reception.
A worrying development.
QUALITY
NOT QUANTITY
I thought I would add up the
votes we made during the Thursday vote as it is a long time since I did
it for one entire Plenary session.
Then I counted well over 700 votes during the week.
This time for one day I counted 498, of which 58 were recorded
votes and I don't know how many were electronic checks in case of
unclear results. Some would
say we must be improving our productivity, but I would say never mind
the quantity, feel the quality.
More is certainly worse, I fear,
since by definition, we only have the same amount of time to study the
amendments.
COURT
OF AUDITORS REPORT
View some
figures I have extracted from the Court of Auditors Report on the 2000
Budget. They may be of interest.
These are scanned in image format.
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