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At the start of the Session, the President
(Speaker) announced that the Presidency of the Council was not going to
be present after 7pm on the Wednesday so their question time would be
curtailed. I had to get to my feet on a point of order to remind people
we had a debate scheduled for after 9pm which included an oral question
to the Council about the Energy Community Treaty. If they were not
going to be there then there was little point in debating the issue of
whether we should vote on giving our Assent to the Treaty. I had to do
the same thing the next morning and by midday the Austrians managed to
change their travel plans and promise to field a State Secretary.
Morales Walkout The next event on the
Monday evening was due to be a Formal Session (Session Solemnelle) to
listen to the new President of Bolivia, Evo Morales. As this fellow has
an old-fashioned socialist approach to private property and used
soldiers to occupy energy installations, most of us on the Centre Right
made a swift but dignified exit in protest. Yet another PR triumph for
our Spanish Socialist President of the Parliament for issuing the
invitation in the first place.
And so to work After which I had some
serious work on hand. We had a committee meeting set in the only room
other than the main chamber, to be fitted with electronic voting. The
only item was voting the Report on the 7th Framework
Programme of European Research. In the case of a legislative proposal
this the report actually consists of a series of amendments to the
original text of the Commission. This report amounted to nearly 1700
amendments including those from other committees submitting their
Opinions and some 51 so-called Compromise Amendments drafted by the
rapporteur and shadows so as to combine as many of the original
amendments as possible.
A Hard
Night’s Vote
This process helps to reduce the number of votes we have to take,
just as adopting an amendment can cause a number of others on the same
topic to fall. Even so we voted from 6.30pm
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until nearly 10pm with one brief break
for a comfort stop. As the Chairman, it fell to me to talk virtually
all the time along the lines of: “Amendment one thousand and eleven.
Those in favour, thank you; those against, thank you; abstentions,
thank you. That is adopted (or rejected).” Occasionally there was a
welcome break in the rhythm to say: “I’m not sure about that one. I
want an electronic check. The vote is open; has everyone voted; the vote
is closed. Forty six voting; twenty four in favour; twenty against; two
abstentions. That is adopted”. And so on.
Me, multi-tasking? My limited multi-tasking
ability was stretched to the limit trying to put teabag, slice of lemon
and sugar lump in a cup of tea at the same time as calling the votes and
judging the outcome from a show of hands. Everybody co-operated
splendidly and we managed something like 600 votes in just over 3
hours.
Meetings, meetings On Tuesday morning I
have a series of bilateral meetings (click
here for photos of a couple of examples). One of which is with a
Finnish Minister getting geared up for their Presidency in the second
half of the year. Tuesday evening we held a dinner debate of the EEF
(European Energy Forum) sponsored by the Swedish energy company
Vattenfall on the subject of combating climate change. I think there
were 19 MEPs attending part or all of the event which is indicative of
the importance of, and interest in, the issue. (Click
here for photo)
British beef
is back!
Wednesday morning is more meetings before votes at noon and more in the
afternoon until I break off to attend the British Beef Event organised
by my South West colleague Neil Parish MEP to celebrate the resumption
of exports of beef to France. Being a lifelong vegetarian, the delicacy
rather passed me by but remembering well the imposition of the ban ten
years ago and the devastating impact on the livestock industry in
my then constituency of Devon I was delighted to
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join in
celebrating the end of the tunnel (Click here for photo).
Speaking time largesse After 9pm that
evening, I lead the debate on my report on proposing Assent to the
Energy Community Treaty along with two oral questions to Council and
Commission about aspects of it. I had ten minutes, an almost unheard
of amount of speaking time. The Treaty extends the acquis
communautaire or EU legal base in the field of energy market
legislation to the countries of South East Europe which are not member
states. After the debate I met up with the Commissioner for a cup of
tea (in his case) and chat. (Click
here for photo)
Money for stem cell research Thursday I
attend a planning meeting to discuss the two aspects of the 7th
Framework Programme we have yet to vote. They are, of course, the two
trickiest points, finance and ethical issues (code for stem cell
research). We had to wait until the Financial Perspective and
Inter-Institutional Agreement were adopted by Parliament on Wednesday
so we will vote at the end of the month. We managed to agree on how
to proceed, at least. Thursdays we have our CEE (Conservative
Enterprise Europe) lunch meeting where we discuss business and
industry issues as well as our liaison links with the Shadow Team at
home. It also serves as a wash-up meeting on the week’s business. (Click
here for photo). After that I spend the afternoon catching up
with paperwork.
Lovely boating weather On Friday I travel
home just in time to take part in a reunion outing at Putney of the
Eight in which I rowed at Henley in 1963. We are all getting long in
the tooth but the outing and get-together make a wonderful contrast to
a tiring Strasbourg week. (Click here for photos)
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