SOUTH WEST FIRST Letter From Strasbourg
July 2000 | ||
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Before the
Chirac road show we had to decide on the urgencies for the week (topics
debated on Thursday |
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The July
Strasbourg session opens and closes, for me, with football stories. The evening before setting forth
on my travels I watched the final Euro 2000 match between France and
Italy. The whole family
wanted Italy to defeat the French (of course) and all looked good until
the last minute of injury time.
Gloom descended as the lucky French snatch victory from the jaws of
defeat. BLAIR KEEPS QUIET At the end of
the week we hear that Germany has won the competition to stage the next
football World Cup but only after a very close vote. England came no-where, which may
explain why Tony Blair had declined to follow up his earlier enthusiastic
support and pulled back from leading the final presentation. I ask myself how will his spin doctors
help 'Teflon' Tony avoid being associated with, and blamed for, losing the
next General Election? Travels went relatively smoothly
this session. I found myself
surrounded by a lively bunch of Welsh choristers on the plane. They were off to participate in a
twinning concert in Germany. EURO SUPPORT? At the opening of the session a Conservative colleague raised a point of order about press reports on the briefing given by European Parliament President Nicole Fontaine about her meeting with our Queen during a visit to the U.K. This prompted the Labour Chief Whip to riposte by asking Conservatives to join with him in welcoming Her Majesty's support for the Euro and for the UK joining it. He continued this cheeky but disgraceful line through the rest of the week, compounding his felony of involving the Monarch in party political matters. He is Scottish and of the old Labour tendency and I suspect he saw this as a means to undermine the Monarchy. Another sign of cracks in the control tendency? |
After this we
have an extraordinary meeting of the Industry Committee to decide whether
to agree to the request for urgency procedure on a proposal for assisting
SMEs in Cyprus. The request
was supposedly from the Council, but really it was the Commission pushing
for it but preferring to make the Council responsible. The idea was to put the agreement
in place so money could start being spent in the autumn on establishing an
information centre. We had a
bit of a debate criticising the Commission for the short notice and asked
why Turkish was not listed as a language of the agreement as well as why
there were references to the Republic of Cyprus (majority Greek Cypriot
part) and the territory of Cyprus (the whole island). These being particularly sensitive
matters, the answers given were very much in the Sir Humphrey school. We agreed to the urgency
notwithstanding. NO VOTES TODAY Tuesday
morning there is a change to the routine because President Chirac has come
to launch the French Presidency of the Council for the second half of the
year. Because a large number
of MEPs want to contribute their ha'porth (or whatever the metric
equivalent may be) to the debate, the powers that be decided we did not
need to have a voting session that day at noon, as is normally the
case. The day had started in
sobering fashion for me because no sooner had I set out to walk in than it
began to rain (another French plot, no doubt about it), so I had to step
out and try to keep under what shelter the trees could offer. I got off lightly by
comparison with a colleague who had started a few minutes later and
arrived really drenched.
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afternoon) and
one item was about football hooliganism. One of the SNP (Scottish National
Party) MEPs stood on a point of order to make clear that it was all about
English not British hooligans and although the responsible member state
was the U.K. it was unfair that other, blameless, parts of the U.K. had to share the possible costs
arising from the Belgian authorities' forced repatriation of hundreds of
English fans. Further
evidence of the genie let out of the bottle by devolution and a clear
indication that European integration is bound to trip up over
nationalism. SCAREMONGERING It’s a busy
day because both BBC Southwest and Carlton Television (Westcountry TV as
was) are out in Strasbourg looking for stories to cover. One presents itself in the form of
press reports of a leaked memo from Toshiba in Plymouth bemoaning the
exchange rate and suggesting that staying out of the Euro could cost the
jobs of everyone working in their factory. Someone is playing games as part
of a campaign to change public opinion and bounce us into joining the
Euro. I would be astounded if
the Japanese were to go back on their long-term investment decision, made
for all sorts of reasons, just because of an exchange rate fluctuation
which may not last. But the
story is bound to be unsettling for the workforce in Plymouth. A BALANCING ACT The afternoon
is taken up with running my meeting for the EPP-ED (European Peoples
Party-European Democrats) MEPs on the Industry Committee.
One of the jobs I have to do as co-ordinator is apportion
Reports. This is something of
a tricky balancing exercise to share out work fairly between members of
different nationalities with different skills and preferences. This time I have a problem with
two colleagues wanting the same report on a telecoms directive and neither
willing to do the other one I have on offer. Both have strong claims and each
promises to kick up trouble if they don't get what they want. Its a hard life sometimes and I
adopt the classic european solution - put off the decision for a while in
the hope that someone will give in.
One is Italian and the other is German. OUT OF TUNE After this magnificent display of deferred leadership on my part I attend our Conservative MEPs delegation meeting to hear from Commissioner Bolkestein. The more I hear my colleagues telling him that his remarks were music to their ears, the more I feel sorry for him because he must be somewhat out of tune with his fellow commissioners. |
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SO MUCH TO DO And while this
is going on I am trying to think what I should say in the debate after 9
p.m. on the Mombaur Report about progress on liberalisation in the Gas and
Electricity Markets in the two minutes allotted to me. I only mention this to
illustrate how one seems to
be rushing from one thing to another, trying to focus on each in turn and
avoid overlooking something.
The time passes quickly. WORK EXPERIENCE In between
time I meet up with the young trainee journalist from BBC South West to
discuss what she might interview me about, and my American student intern
who is doing six weeks work experience in my office in both Brussels and
Strasbourg. She was planning
how she and her fellow students
were to celebrate July 4th Independence Day that
evening. SHORT BREATHING SPACE Wednesday
morning the sun shines on my walk in and I start to breathe a little
easier as the end of the week and summer holidays begin to beckon. Coping with faxes and having a
meeting with one of my two colleagues deadlocked over that Rapporteurship
soon puts the pressure
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We start votes
earlier at 11.30 so as to
make up for lost time from Tuesday, but even so there are a number of
reports not dealt with when we break off nearly two hours later. One of them is the Mombaur Report
which eventually is voted on Thursday afternoon in the second long session
of the day. NOT SO SECRET SURVEILLANCE We vote on the
proposal to establish a temporary committee to investigate Echelon the
supposedly secret electronic surveillance system set up by the Americans
and ourselves. Originally it
was intended to protect us from the communist threat posed by the Soviet
Union, but latterly has been aimed more at international TWO POINTS OF CONCERN Two points of
concern arise. First that we
are at risk of falling in with an unholy alliance between the agendas of
the Left and the French aimed at undermining Anglo-American security
co-operation and driving a wedge in between the USA and Europe within
NATO. Second that it could
put the jobs of people who work in various intelligence gathering
locations in the South West at risk.
It is no co-incidence , it seems to me,
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We also vote
on the beef labelling proposals.
All those who sent lobbying messages opposing some of the specific
proposals to label meat as coming from different categories of cattle
should be happy that the amendments opposing this form of sex or age
discrimination were passed, as was the requirement to state the country of
origin of minced beef. LIGHT RELIEF On Thursday
evening, along with quite a few fellow MEPs and staff from the Parliament,
as well as my intern student, I go on the boat trip organised by the City
of Strasbourg. The main
feature was a son et lumiere about the history of the city which amounted
to barely disguised propaganda about what they described as "the capital
of Europe". Yet another piece
of Gallic gall ?! It was quite an impressive show using a lot of fountains
synchronised with the music and I was grateful the night was mild as we
were in the open air. TIME FOR A JOKE However all
that water brought to mind the old joke about asking someone to read aloud
the phrase "`a l'eau c'est l'heure" and see if they
get an old fashioned look from a passing matelot. HAPPY HOLIDAY A happy and long summer to all, normal service will resume in September.
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