SOUTH WEST FIRST
LETTER FROM STRASBOURG - NOVEMBER, 2002
LETTER
FROM STRASBOURG – NOVEMBER 2002
WELL THAT'S POLITICS
On Sunday the final stage of our
re-selection and list ranking process, on Monday off to Strasbourg for
the final session. I wish
to invoke a Conservative curse on the head of Tony Blair for inflicting
this awful PR system upon us and robbing us of our euro-constituencies.
However, at least we can now get back to the job of directing
fire upon our foes after a stint of internal competition.
Enough said.
A GOOD EXCUSE
Some things don’t change, such
as the triumph of hope over experience, otherwise known as flying Air
France to Strasbourg. This
time, to be fair, there was a novel excuse for the cancelled flight and
stranded MEPs. There were
deer loose on the runway at Strasbourg and fog made it very difficult
for the authorities to catch or shoot and remove them.
Sounds on a par with leaves on the rails!
ENLARGEMENT CONTINUES
The first thing I noticed on
arrival was the large number of predominantly male politicians in dark
suits from the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe milling
around all over the place. They
had come for a two day programme of debate and meetings about
enlargement. There were
three consequences that I could see.
The bars of the Parliament were full of strange faces.
Most existing MEPs made themselves scarce to work in their
offices (like myself). There
were no votes at noon on Tuesday to permit the debate to continue
unchecked.
NORMALITY RESUMES
At the end of Tuesday things
reverted to normal. In the
meeting for EPP-ED (European Peoples
Party-European Democrats, the
centre right political group of which we Conservatives are allied
members) members of the Industry Committee, we had a lively discussion
about GATS. That stands for
General Agreement on Trade in Services.
The discussion centred on the forthcoming hearing in our
committee and how best to counter the anti-globalisation, anti-liberalisation
agenda of the greens and others.
A POINT OF PRINCIPLE
We also touched on the
Intelligent Energy proposal. This
sounds like an oxymoron to me, but I failed to persuade my continental
colleagues to get the joke. More
to the point, it contained specific proposals to establish yet another
agency, to increase the budget and provide for five MEPs to sit on the
advisory committee overseeing the programme of measures (really they
mean energy efficiency). We
Conservatives opposed all of these points on principle and I was able to
persuade our EPP-ED colleagues to oppose the third suggestion.
That is because it crossed the dividing line between our role as
legislators and scrutineers and the Commission role as the executive
arm.
HERBAL MEDICINES
On Wednesday a couple of reports
are debated that have been causing
concern at home. One
is the Herbal Medicine draft Directive, which has given rise to fears
that many products currently available will be forced off the market.
Actually a provision for accepting products on sale over the past
ten years has been included. (I
even voted for a liberal amendment pushing for 30 years).
The main target for the measure is some imported Chinese products
which have killed people, not the vast majority of herbal medicines.
TEMPORARY WORKERS
The other topic was the
Temporary Agency Workers draft directive.
This is aimed at giving all such workers exactly the same rights
as full-time long-term staff. The
consequences of this measure for the U.K. could be to threaten the
livelihood of 160,000 workers.
After all, if an employer wanted full-time long-term staff, he or
she would employ them, but if confronted with the choice between a
temporary worker who must be treated as having all rights or not taking
anyone on at all, my guess is that the latter option would be chosen.
We failed in our amendments to moderate many of the most
inflexible provisions.
ANGLO GERMAN DEBATE
My week closed with a talk (in
English) to a group of German students being sponsored to visit the
Parliament by a German colleague. They
were a lively bunch full of questions and seemed pretty sensible (except
for the nice young woman who was clearly a green supporter) but then
they came from Bavaria which is the most Conservative part of their
country. Could South West
students debate politics in German, I wonder?
May
I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and confusion to our
enemies.
Final
thought, please let me know your email
address, so I can send future
newsletters electronically.
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