Giles Chichester Conservative MEP for South West England and Gibraltar
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LETTER FROM EUROPE
October 2009

 

GILES CHICHESTER CONSERVATIVE MEP
for the South West of England
and Gibraltar

Gibraltar Day celebration
I have yet to settle into a Strasbourg week routine in this new parliamentary term. On the Monday when I would normally be travelling I stopped off in London to attend the 10th annual celebration of Gibraltar Day in the Guildhall in the City. The Rock clearly has plenty of friends in the City judging by the crush.

Another new Minister for Europe
A characteristically vigorous and positive speech by Chief Minster Peter Caruana was followed by some remarks by new Europe Minister Chris Bryant. I remember him in his former guise as Brussels lobbyist for the BBC. His appointment to succeed Glenys Kinnock had been slipped out quietly by the Government a short while ago and I can well imagine why after all the fanfare surrounding her elevation to the peerage and being made minister just a very few months ago. This government really is wallowing in the slough of despond and should not wait upon the order of its going.

Travel to Strasbourg
Tuesday finds me trying out a new means of travel to Strasbourg. I take the Eurostar to Paris, walk around the corner to the Gare de L’Est and board a TGV for Strasbourg. It beats flying for comfort, less hassle and better carbon footprint even if it takes a little bit longer. However the disadvantage of arriving a day late is a pile up of things to do as soon as I get to my office.

Stretched very thin
Because we Conservatives are in this new group I am having to do some adjusting to different ways. The most significant of which is that I am co-ordinator for the group in my committee, just as I was in our previous group, but now I have only four of us with half a staff member to cover the same workload of reports and opinions that I had twenty MEPs and three to four staff to call upon. So we are stretched very thin.

Inter Parliamentary Meetings
This week I had to participate in the IPM (Inter Parliamentary Meeting) with a group from South Africa; also attend meetings to do with the Trialogues on Telecoms and energy labelling of electrical goods and a meeting of the Pan African Parliament delegation. IPMs are what European Parliament delegations do and they tend to alternate between the two meeting places concerned, so next time the meeting will be in South Africa. This is going to be an interesting learning curve for me because although I have been there a couple of times the issues are very different and changing rapidly from my previous experience in Australia and New Zealand.
 

The Trialogues
Trialogues are meetings between representatives of the Parliament and the Council as co-legislators with the Commission in attendance to advise and assist. The two going on at the moment, in which I am involved as shadow
Rapporteur for the group, are left over and unfinished business from the last parliament because each has a tricky issue upon which we could not agree.

Freedom of access to the internet
In Telecoms it concerns amendment 138 which was about freedom of access to the internet and whether Member States can impose measures against pirate downloading of copyright material without payment. Denizens of the information highway view any attempt to police this activity as an infringement of their human rights. I call it old fashioned theft.

Energy labelling
In energy labelling we have become bogged down in a debate about the design of the labels manufacturers must put on their products to show their efficiency. The existing scheme using a sort of traffic light colour coding on a scale of A to G has been so successful that virtually everything is now in the A band. So it needs updating but there is no agreement on how. Watch this space but be advised yours truly is doing his best to put forward constructive suggestions.

Freedom of the press vote
We had an interesting voting session on Wednesday all about a report on freedom of the press. This was debated in our last mini session in Brussels and seemed to boil down to an attack by the left on Berlusconi. Well the left certainly ganged up in the vote and was winning all the votes in rejecting various motions from ourselves, the EPP (our former group) and others until we reached the last possible option, a motion by the Liberals which seemed likely to pass since they had mostly been siding with the left. Amazing then that the vote was 335 for and 338 against. Great celebrations on our side of the chamber and puzzled dejection on the left. Collapse of stout party as we used to say. But it was nice to confound the massed ranks of the left for once.

Group voting list
Final thought. Our new group is supposed to be of like minded parties. Which hardly explains why our voting list has one column for the group position and another for the Polish position. That never happened in the EPP.
 

 

 
Meetings with lobby and interest groups October 2009

Veena Hudson                          ACCA

Chas Roy Chowdhury                ACCA

Rachel Bloomer                         Airbus UK

David Dean                               Airbus UK

Peter Gibson                             Alliance Boots

Paulina Hakulinen                      Aviva

Rachael Jackson                       BAA London Stansted

Philip Pilcher                             BSkyB

Naomi Regan                            Centrica plc

Tahir Majid                                Centrica plc

Fiona Ferguson                         Chemical Industries Association

Simon Storer                             Construction Products Association

Jennifer Huckstep                     Engineering Employers’ Federation

Rohan Malhotra                         Fidelity Investments International

Sietske de Groot                       FSB

Richard Hyslop                         FSB

Toby Kenward                           FSB

Tina Sommer                             FSB

John Walker                              FSB

Vernon Hunte                            Institute of Civil Engineers

Antonia Norman                        Marks and Spencer

Paul Morris                               Microsoft Ltd

Julianne Lee                              Nomura International

Keith Johnston                          STEP

Howard Davies                          Standard Life

Victoria Fawcett                        The Enterprise Forum

Richard Rumbelow                    The Enterprise Forum

John Sartin                               The Enterprise Forum

Cosima Toral                             The Enterprise Forum

Lionel Zetter                              The Enterprise Forum

Julie Edwards                           NFU

Andrew Butler                            NFU

Paul Cottington                         NFU

Melanie Hall                              NFU

 

 

Mrs.

Franziska

ANNERL

Press Officer

 

Mr.

Michael

BRANDSTETTER

Adviser

 

Mrs.

Edda

KNITTEL

Adviser

 

Dr.

Christoph

LEITL

President

 

Mrs.

Verena

MARTELANZ

Adviser

 

Mr.

Erich

PUTZ

Head of Office

 

Mrs.

Barbara

SCHENNACH

Head of Office

 

Dr.

Richard

SCHENZ

Vice President

 

Mrs.

Melina

SCHNEIDER

Adviser

 

Mr.

Karlheinz

WANKER

Press Officer

 

Mr.

VASILI

RAMANAU

Chairman

 

Mr.

VLADIMIR

SOBOLEV

Counsellor

 

Mr.

Raf

JACXSENS

Vice President

 

Mr.

Paul

KUMPEN

President

 

Mr.

René

LEEKENS

General Manager

 

Mr.

Philippe

LUYTEN

President

 

Mr.

Robert

MOCKEL

President

 

Ms.

Elisabeth

SCHRAEPEN

Expert Internationaal Ondernemen

 

Mr.

John

STOOP

President

 

Mr.

Jean-Paul

VAN AVERMAET

President

 

Mr.

Wouter

VAN GULCK

Managing Director

 

Mr.

Paul

VANNESTE

Directeur Internationaal Ondernemen

 

Mr.

Jean-Christophe

WEICKER

President

 

Mr

Tarik

Djodjic

Secretary General

 

Mrs.

Vera

Akhundova

Manager

 

Mr.

Boris

Boyadjiev

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

 

Mrs.

Iva

Boyadzhieva

Economist - finances

 

Mrs.

Yordanka

Chavdarova

Manager

 

Mr.

Ivan

Karailanski

CEO

 

Mr.

Petko

PETKOV

Manager

 

Mrs.

Dobrina

Prodanova

President

 

Mr.

Andreya

Shterev

Chairman

 

Mr.

Tsvetan

Simeonov

President

 

Mr.

Momchil

Stanishev

Expert International Organizations

 

Mrs.

Hristina

Stoytcheva

Manager

 

Mrs.

Veska

Tzvetanova

Manager

 

Mrs.

Dragica

Martinovic

Director, Brussels Office

 

Mrs.

Vesna

Trnokop-Tanta

Vice President

 

Mr.

Panayiotis

I. Loizides

Secretary General

 

Mr.

Manthos

Mavrommatis

President

 

 

Michaela

CHVOJKOVÁ

Assistant

 

 

Michal

Kadera

Director

 

Mr

Petr

KUZEL

President

 

 

Thi Thuy Duong

NGUYEN

Executive assistant

 

Mr

Radek

PAZOUT

Adviser

 

 

Zbyněk

PROKOP

Director

 

 

Šárka

SEDLÁČKOVÁ

Expert

 

Ms

Alena

Vlačihová

Deputy director

 

Mr

Ivan

Voles

Adviser

 

Mr

Kasper

Ernest

EU Assistant

 

Mr

Uffe

Nielsen

EU Advisor

 

Dr.

Kari

Jalas

Director General

 

Mr.

Jukka

Kero

Director

 

Mrs

Bénédicte

BELZUNG

Advisor - SME policy & competitiveness

 

Mr.

Michel

BEYET

Delegate

 

Mr.

Olivier

BOPP

Advisor - Skills & International

 

Mr.

Bernard

COTTIN

Advisor European Affairs

 

Mr.

Jean

DESTRIBATS

Director Institutional & External Affairs

 

Mr.

Michel

DIEUDONNE

Vice President ACFCI - President, CCI Jura and CRCI Franche-Comté

 

Ms.

Caroline

HOOGENDOORN

Press & Communication

 

Mr.

Jean-Claude

KARPELES

Member of the board

 

Mr.

Philippe

LAVIALLE

Member of the board

 

Mrs.

Camille

LE BORGNE

Advisor - Energy, Environment, Tourism & Transport

 

Mr.

Olivier

LEMERLE

Advisor - Regional Policy

 

Ms

Sandra

PENNING

Delegate

 

Ms.

Carine

PIAGUET

Legal Advisor

 

Mrs

Dorothée

PINEAU

Director Delegate for European, legal and financial Affairs

 

Mrs.

Marie-Elisabeth

RUSLING

Director European Affairs

 

Dr.

Sara

Borella

Director Research and Innovation

 

 

Jochen

Clausnitzer

Director European & International Law, Commercial & Insurance Law

 

 

Barbara

Fabian

Director EU-Education and Vocational Training Policy

 

 

Timo

Floren

Intern

 

Dr.

Ralf

Geruschkat

Director Regional Economic Policy, EU-Transport Policy

 

 

Corinna

Grajetzky

Director Product and Consumer Policy

 

 

Peter

Hauff

Director Press and Public Relations

 

 

Frank

Horch

Vice-President

 

 

Thomas

Ilka

Managing Director Brussels Office

 

 

Wim

Martens

Director European Integration

 

 

Hanna

Müller-Zick

Intern

 

Dr.

Martin

Wansleben

Chief Executive Officer

 

 

Cristina

Wille

Director European Affairs

 

Dr.

Bettina

Wurster

Director Environment and Environmental Law

 

Mr.

Panagiotis

Agniadis

Secretary General

 

Mr.

Vasileios

Apostolopoulos

General Director

 

Mr.

Georgios

Asonitis

Consultant

 

Mrs.

Sophia

Economacou

Secretary General

 

Mr.

Dimitrios

Gountopoulos

Vice President

 

Mr.

Ilias

Hatzivasiloglou

Financial Supervisor

 

Mr.

Georgios

Hondrogiannis

Vice President

 

Mr.

Georgios

Kassimatis

President

 

Mrs.

Eirini

Konstantinidou

Director-Brussels
Office

 

Mr.

Sotirios

Magopoulos

Member

 

Ms.

Dimitra

Vassilia

Assistant

 

Mr.

Michalis

Zorpidis

Vice President

 

Ms.

Szonja

Bender

EU Representative

 

Dr.

Árpád András

Boros

Deputy Secretary of International Department

 

Dr.

Richárd

Burján

CEO

 

Mr.

Miklós Alfonz

Dormán

Mayor

 

Mr.

Péter

Dunai

Secretary General

 

Dr.

Gábor

Erdélyi

Notary

 

Mr.

Sándor Pál

File

Director for Development of Economy

 

Mr.

József

Gaál

President

 

Mr.

István

Gödri

Managing Director

 

Dr.

Csaba

Hári

Secretary of International Department

 

Dr.

Lajos

Horváth

Vice President

 

 

Wilhelm

Huber

Member of the Presidency

 

Mr.

Sándor József

Kiss

Secretary General

 

Mr.

Vince

Kovács

President

 

Ms.

Zsuzsanna

Krihó

Member of the Presidency

 

Mr.

Péter

Lakics

Managing Director

 

Mr.

Károly

Mádé

Vice President

 

Mr.

Gyula

Mónus

Managing Director

 

Mr.

Pál

Nemesi

President

 

Mr.

Zoltán

Németh

Secretary General

 

Dr.

László

Parragh

President

 

Dr.

József

Polay

President

 

Mr.

Rajmund

Prohászka

Vice President

 

Dr.

Istvánné

Somogyi

Secretary General

 

Mrs.

Mária

Stark Tényiné

Director for International Affairs

 

Dr.

György

Szekeres

Managing Director

 

 

Árpád

Szilágyi

Stagiaire

 

Mr.

György

Szügyi

Member of the Presidency

 

Mr.

József

Torma

Vice President

 

Mrs.

Erika

Tóth

Member of the controlling Committee

 

Mr.

Kálmán

Tóth

CE0

 

Dr.

Zoltán

Vereczkey

Vice President

 

Dr.

Tamás

Zahorán

Secretary General

 

Mr.

Yiorgos

Benetos

President

 

Mr.

Giancarlo

Deidda

President

 

Mr.

Mario

Frontoni

Technical Committee

 

Mr.

Joe

Grech

President

 

Mr

Michael

Grech

Vicepresident

 

Mr.

Olivier

Lemerle

Technical Committee

 

Ms

Carine

Piaguet

Legal advisor

 

Mr

Seán

Murphy

Deputy Chief Executive

 

Mr

Ian

Talbot

Chief Executive

 

Mr.

Uriel

Lynn

President

 

Mr.

Oren

Shachor

Vice-President

 

Mr.

Pierre

GRAMEGNA

 

 

Mrs.

Sabrina

SAGRAMOLA

 

 

Mr

Alfredas

Jonuska

Director General

 

Mr

Viktoras

Krolis

Director General

 

Mr

Visvaldas

Matkevicius

Director General

 

Mr

Rimantas

Sidlauskas

Director General

 

Mr

Vytautas

Sileikis

Director General

 

Mr

Rimantas

Stankevicius

President

 

Mr

Borisas

Zaubidovas

Director General

 

Mr.

Kevin J.

Borg

Director-General

 

Mr.

Omar

Cutajar

Permanent Delegate

 

Mr.

Stefano

Mallia

Vice-President

 

Mr.

Joseph

Tanti

Chief Executive Officer

 

 

Remco

de Bruijn

International Affairs Manager

 

 

Rahma

el Mouden

Member of the Board

 

Mr.

Ton

Geerts

CEO

 

 

Ditte

Hofmeester

Member of the Board

 

Drs.

Jan

Hoogkamer

Director

 

 

Frans

Lavooij

President

 

 

Ronald

Migo

CEO

 

 

Ton

Nelissen

President

 

Drs.

Thijs

Pennink

CEO

 

Drs.

Ben

Pollmann

CEO

 

 

Mirjam

Rijkenborgh

Communication Advisort

 

Mr.

Chris

Rutten

President

 

Dr.

Gerrit

Valk

President

 

 

Frans

van Steenis

CEO

 

Mr.

Harm

van Veldhuizen

CEO

 

 

Marius

Varekamp

President

 

 

Bertha

Verhoeven-van Lierop

President

 

Drs.

Gert

Zandsteeg

CEO

 

DR.

ANDRZEJ

ARENDARSKI

PRESIDENT

 

 

LECH

BIEG

PRESIDENT

 

 

TADEUSZ

DONOCIK

PRESIDENT

 

 

MAREK

KLOCZKO

SECRETARY GENERAL

 

 

WOJCIECH

KONECKI

GENERAL DIRECTOR

 

Mr.

Pedro

Madeira Rodrigues

Secretary General

 

Mr.

Bruno

Pinto Basto Bobone

President

 

Mr.

Mihail

Vlasov

President

 

Mrs.

Cornelia Liliana

Stefanescu

Head of Chancellery

 

Mrs.

Smaranda Olga

Heroiu

Head of Chancellery Office

 

Mr

Mihail Andrei

Cismaru

Bruxelles representative

 

Mr.

Milos

BUGARIN

President

 

Mrs.

Danica

MILOVANOVIC

Head of Cabinet of the President

 

Mrs.

Gordana

ZRNIC

Director

 

Dr.

Peter

Mihok

President

 

 

Samo

Hribar Milič

General Manager

 

 

Iztok

Klančnik

CEO

 

 

Zdenko

Pavček

President

 

Dr.

Cveto

Stantič

Vice-President Employers' Group

 

Mr.

Xavier

Coronas

Delegate for UpM and Eurochambres

 

Mr.

Arturo

Escuder Martín

Vicepresident

 

Mr.

Fernando

Gómez Avilés Casco

Vicepresident

 

Mr.

Antonio

Grimalt Llofriu

Secretary general

 

Mr.

Juan

Gual de Torrella Guasp

President

 

Mrs.

Cristina

Moreno

Institutional and international relations.

 

Mr.

José Luis

Pérez-Lozana Redondo

Staff in Brussels

 

Mr.

Fernando

Puerto Fernández

Brussels delegate

 

Mr.

José A.

Quiroga y Pineyro

President

 

Mrs.

Yolanda

Segui Domínguez

Staff in Brussels

 

Mr.

Miquel

Valls Maseda

President

 

Mr.

Peter

Egardt

CEO and General Director

 

Mr.

Nicklas

Lundblad

Vice President

 

Mrs.

Karin

Malmström

Senior Advisor EU & Trade policy

 

Mrs.

Charlotte

Nyberg

Head of International Department

 

Mr.

RIFAT

HISARCIKLIOGLU

TOBB PRESIDENT

 

Mr.

HALIM

METE

TOBB VICE-PRESIDENT

 

Mr.

TANIL

KUCUK

TOBB VICE-PRESIDENT

 

Mr.

ILHAN

PARSEKER

TOBB BOARD MEMBER

 

Mr.

MUSTAFA

YARDIMCI

TOBB BOARD MEMBER

 

Mr.

MEHMET ALI

KUSEYRI

TOBB BOARD MEMBER

 

Mr.

MUSTAFA

BAYBURTLU

TOBB, Head of  EU Department

 

Mr.

MUSTAFA

SARACOZ

TOBB, Head of Cabinet of the President 

 

Ms.

HILAL

KESKINER

TOBB Senior Expert

 

Ms.

BURCIN

KANBUROGLU

TOBB Expert

 

Mr.

KEMAL

VURAL

TOBB Expert

 

Mr.

BULENT

BILGIC

TOBB Brussels Permanent Representative

 

Mrs.

BEYHAN

NURAY

TOBB Brussels Office

 

Ms.

DIDEM

YENER 

TOBB - ETU

 

 

Richard Charles

Adams

 

 

 

Moneeb

Awan

 

 

 

Graham

Aylott

 

 

 

Philip Laurence

Baker

 

 

 

Diane Louise

Bayliss Bennett

 

 

 

Mark Steven

Bedford

 

 

 

Raymond Quincey

Brookes

 

 

 

Stuart

Brown

 

 

 

Carolyn Mary

Burgess

 

 

 

David

Burton

 

 

 

Karen

Clements

 

 

 

Laura Jane Rachel

Cohen

 

 

 

Philip

Collins

 

 

 

Audrey

Collins

 

 

 

Felicity Jane

Copp

 

 

 

Lilian Ann

Cotham

 

 

 

David George

Cowcher

 

 

 

Paul Leonard

Coxhead

 

 

 

Philip Gerard

Cusack

 

 

 

Cathy

Davies

 

 

 

Ann

Diggins

 

 

 

Alan

Durham

 

 

 

Gillian

Econopouly

 

 

 

Daniel

Fell

 

 

 

Christopher Mark

Fletcher