SOUTH WEST FIRST

LETTER FROM STRASBOURG - SEPTEMBER 2000

FRENCH BLOCKADE

The week before Strasbourg it was French fishermen blockading Channel ports, this week it appears to be French truck and tanker drivers blockading fuel depots in protest about the price of fuel.  However, the only delay on the way from the airport through Germany, was the normal traffic jams on the autobahn.  The driver did use a route into Strasbourg which was new to me and involved some twisting back roads but we arrived in good time ready for the fray.

REFERENDUM NEIN

It was to be a week of this and that covering quite a few issues within my committee areas of responsibility.  However, the first thing that had lots of continental colleagues jumping was the press reports of German Commissioner Verheugen (a socialist nominee by the way) and his remarks about having a referendum in Germany on enlargement.

EURO 'MARKS' TIME

The German colleagues were a bit excited about this dangerous proposal to consult the people, as being wholly unconstitutional (meaning there is no provision for any such exercise of democracy in their constitution) and they all wanted to call him to account in the Parliament for undermining unity and the European project in this way!  It all turned out to be much ado about nothing later in the week, but gave some of my British colleagues some fun reflecting about the outcome of a referendum on the euro in Germany!

NUCLEAR PARANOIA

I had two matters requiring prompt attention on my part.  The Commission was to make a joint statement with the French Presidency about a proposal to establish an Observatory or Monitoring Centre on Industrial Change.  And there was yet another Green initiative to attack nuclear energy through an urgency debate about a power station at Temelin in the Czech Republic.  Or perhaps I should say more of an unholy alliance between the Greens and Austrian paranoia about nuclear issues

CO-ORDINATING SUPPORT

I was rather pleased at having achieved near unanimity within the EPP-ED (European Peoples Party - European Democrats, the political group of which we Conservatives are allied members) preparatory meetings on taking a robust line against the monitoring centre.  My status as co-ordinator for the EPP on the Industry Committee comes in very handy in such a situation.  Unfortunately the Dutch colleague who is EPP co-ordinator on the Employment and Social Affairs Committee was more inclined to support the proposal and unwilling to go along with the text everyone else had agreed with me, so I could not rely on full support.

TESTING THE TEXTS

However at the meeting between political groups to negotiate a joint resolution for a motion on the topic by merging all the separate texts put down previously, it became apparent that we had strong support from the Liberals (well it does happen occasionally) and the UEN (Union for a Europe of Nations) and that our position was very different from the Socialists, the Greens and the GUE (now the European United Left/Nordic Green Left but communist by another name in effect).  So two joint texts were agreed and the stage was set for a real left right debate.

'SUB' TEXT DIVES

My other matter seemed less of a problem at first because there was to be an urgency devoted to the question of nuclear submarine safety mainly about the Kursk accident but also an opportunity for the Spanish to work

themselves up about our nuclear submarine in Gibraltar awaiting minor repairs to a pressure tube.  We had hoped to head off the Czech issue by appending a short paragraph to the submarine text, but unfortunately the German President of the EPP announced at the last moment that Temelin would be a separate urgency topic.  There are five headings, including one on human rights which always comprises several separate human rights issues around the world, so this month there would be two about nuclear matters.

LET STRONG MOTIONS LIE

One of our Austrian EPP MEPs, a forceful lady who had been an environment minister, was very keen on putting forward a strong text which had originated in some ministry in Austria, so I had to take part in yet another meeting  to negotiate a text, but on this occasion the Socialists had put together a much more moderate text (such are the curiosities of the way the European Parliament operates), which I could agree as the basis for a joint motion.  Privately, I would have preferred no motions and no urgency at all, but you can't win them all!

NEW LABOUR, OLD MUD

You can tell that an election is looming on the horizon when New Labour starts an offensive by slinging mud in our direction.  They had two attempts this week.  The first, on Monday at the opening of the session, was a blatant attempted smear by the Leader of the Labour MEPs on one of my colleagues, Daniel Hannan MEP, for raising money for the "no" campaign in the Danish Referendum on whether to join the euro.  The smear amounted to a) an attack on 'interfering in the internal affairs of another member state' and b) an insinuation that parliamentary allowances had been improperly used, by calling for an investigation.

A BALANCED VIEW

Being a journalist as well as a politician, Daniel had been fully prepared for this sort of thing by being absolutely punctilious in not using staff or allowances provided by the Parliament.  As for the purported crime of interfering by sending some money to make a small gesture to even up the imbalance of all the funding going to the yes campaign (all the main political parties, trade union and employer organisations, all newspapers bar two, the government machinery and various other helpful bodies support the yes campaign), of course any self-respecting Englishman  with our instinct for giving the underdog a hand would send a bob or two.  I know I did for that very reason.

SPIN LABOUR OFF TRACK

Underlying this nasty little attack by Labour (what happened to ethical conduct in public life?) is the arrogant assumption that anyone who has the temerity to have reservations about or even disagree with the great European project is somehow not in their right mind, subversive and almost criminal.  The press and the media are still too quick to believe the stuff pumped out by the spin doctors, although I believe the BBC passed on this one.

LABOUR RUBBISH THROWN OUT

The second attempted smear by Labour came on Tuesday morning when one of their women MEPs stood to allege that a group of Conservatives had been to America during the summer and had passed themselves off as a delegation from the European Parliament.  As Chairman of the official all party delegation she was protesting this 'improper' behaviour.  She was cut off by the President in the chair for abusing Parliamentary time with this rubbish.  A group of my colleagues did go to the Republican Convention, but I can tell you the last thing they would want to do is describe themselves as anything other than Conservatives from Britain when visiting the Republicans!

VOTES FOR SENSE

We had our debate about monitoring (interfering with) industrial change.  When it came to the vote we very narrowly lost rollcall or recorded votes on our joint text, and our own motion but, to the surprise of all,

won on the ELDR (Liberal) text which was virtually the same as ours.  We lost because  a small number of EPP MEPs followed my Dutch colleague in voting against our line.  This made a change from the situation where we Conservatives vote against the EPP line.

FEDERAL REACTIONS

This group of MEPs from France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Spain belong to the so-called Schuman Group.  They regard themselves as the core defenders of the cause of European integration and came into being as a direct reaction to the rising influence of British Conservatives, Scandinavians and others within the EPP-ED who have a much more pragmatic approach to European issues.  They can fairly be described as federalists and, numbering 25-30, represent 10-15% of the EPP-ED parliamentary group membership.

DEADLINES DISRUPTED

Tuesday evening there is an extraordinary meeting of the Industry Committee to vote on our Opinion for the 2001 Budget.  However, because not all amendments were available in all languages, the vote was deferred.  The problem is that the translators in Luxembourg are suffering disruption because of building works to remove asbestos and, so we are told, consequently unable to keep up with workload and deadlines.  For the same reason minutes of the previous days session were not available for approval until 3 p.m. instead of start of play at 9 a.m.

NO SINGING FOR SUPPER

We had a co-ordinators meeting after the Committee to negotiate the allocation of reports and so on.  Then I was off to dinner with UNICE, the European umbrella organisation for business and industry (equivalent to the CBI), in a restaurant out of Strasbourg in Obernai.  Somewhat to my relief the restaurant had lots of other customers, so a speech from me was not on the cards.  I went round the tables instead having a few words on each.  A better way of meeting people and hearing from them than would be a more formal speech.

EMBRYO RESEARCH

On Wednesday a third issue of particular importance to my committee responsibility for research was debated.  The Commission made a statement about cloning and stem cell research following the UK Government decision to accept the Donaldson Committee Report and put it to a free vote in both Houses of Parliament.  This is about the use of human embryo tissue for research into cures for diseases such as Parkinsons and arouses much concern in some quarters, that it could lead to human reproductive cloning.

CONSCIENCE AND SCIENCE

Once again there were two joint texts although the support was not on left/right lines by any means.  As a conscience issue it was a free vote but the arguments waxed strong within the EPP-ED where the Christian Democrats took a strongly pro-life stance against any research in this area.  The vote on Thursday found the Parliament equally divided with the CD text eventually being adopted by seven votes.

MORE TIME NEEDED

I voted against all motions for two reasons.  First I did not feel such an important issue should be decided in such a rush, especially when we have an own initiative report in preparation on 'The Future of Biotechnology'.  Second I was opposed to adopting a text which could interfere with the UK votes in Parliament by calling for

yet another temporary committee on the subject , which would probably delay matters. You could call this the subsidiarity argument.

THE POWER STATION CAT

Thursday afternoon we debated the Temelin nuclear power station question and I used my minute to put a cat among the pigeons by saying I did not believe there should be an urgency, that I regretted Austrian people were allowing themselves to be ruled by emotion rather than rational scientific evidence and deploring the use of political blackmail by threats to hold up the accession of the Czech Republic to the EU.  This did not make me popular with a Green woman MEP nor my Austrian colleague, but someone had to say something on the side of the Czechs whom I viewed as the underdogs of this scenario.

HIDDEN DIMENSION

Later a German MEP suggested that there was another dimension to the situation because the CSU Prime Minister in Bavaria, normally a strong supporter of nuclear energy, was on the side of the Austrians.  The reason dating back to the immediate post war period when the Czechs expelled a lot of Sudeten Germans at the same time as all the other displaced persons were being pushed westward after the re-drawing of frontiers in central and eastern Europe.  These Sudeten Deusche harbour a grievance about losing their homes and property, so want an opportunity to re-possess them.  Wheels within wheels.

HAPPY MEMORIES

Friday morning, my last event in a busy week was to meet an Anglo-German group of visitors, including people from Portishead. That name evokes memories of marine radio telephone traffic from Gipsy Moth in the distant past.  Those were the days!  However we talked about the euro and the loyalties of an MEP, whether to constituency/region or to Europe.  The questioner obviously had not seen my letterhead South West First.  They kindly gave me a very handsome engraved glass paper weight, so, thank you Portishead Twinning Association.

Giles Chichester, 48 Queen Street, EXETER EX4 3SR

Tel:- 01392 491815

Fax- 01392 491588

e-mail:
GilesChichesterMEP@eclipse.co.uk