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To
Strasbourg for the mid-terms
The Plenary session in Strasbourg this January was an unusual one.
It marked the halfway point between the last election in 2009 and
the next one in 2014 and is the occasion for a reshuffling of the
pack of posts in the Parliament. So we had to vote for a new
President first, followed by 14 Vice-Presidents and 5 Quaestors. I
say vote but most of the key decisions are taken out of sight under
the d'Hondt system of proportionality between the major political
groups and the votes are more like a rubber stamp than a genuine
election. Nevertheless, surprises can happen.
A new President of the Parliament
The deal struck between the EPP, the centre right European People's
Party, and the S&D, the Socialists and Democrats who are the main
group of the left, at the beginning of this Parliament was for an
EPP nominee in the first half and a Socialist in the second half. Mr
Buzek, a thoroughly nice Pole, has just handed over to Mr Schultz, a
German Social Democrat who is not quite as popular and rather more
bossy. But...
Good result for the ECR Candidate
There were two other candidates; my colleague Nirj Deva MEP as the
official ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists) nominee and an
independent Lib Dem Diana Wallis who couldn't get her group to make
her an official candidate. Nirj ran a splendid campaign which
culminated in The Independent confidently predicting he would only
get the ECR vote (55) and come third behind Wallis. In the event,
Schultz did achieve the absolute majority required to win at the
first ballot but with 40-50 fewer votes than he might have expected
if the big group MEPs had kept to the deal. They didn't, and that is
why Nirj came second with 142 (or nearly three times the ECR
membership) and Wallis got 141 (she had evidently actually believed
she could win based on the promises she had received).
Rattled cages
So what, you may well say, when we ended up with the predicted
result. Well, I think a few cages were rattled and notice served
that MEPs may no longer be counted on to accept their leaders' deals
unquestioningly. One outcome was that Diana Wallis demonstrated the
complete insincerity of all she said about her sense of duty to the
Members by promptly announcing her resignation as an MEP with effect
from the end of January. A case of sour grapes perhaps, or just
clearing the way for the next on the list to take her place. Who
happens to be her husband. That's Lib Dems for you.
Vice-Presidents and Quaestors
After this, we had three votes for Vice-Presidents because there
were 15 candidates for 14 places and in addition to needing a
majority of those voting to get elected, we had to eliminate one and
vote to rank the 14 in order of precedence. More
evidence that
people
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were not sticking to pre-arranged deals came when no-one passed the
majority threshold and then in the final votes after the extra
candidate withdrew (having made his point about internet freedom and
transparency) the top three slots were filled by Socialists
candidates. This happened despite the EPP having many more members
than the Socialists, Three votes did seem excessive in the
circumstances and something similar happened with the Quaestor
votes.
A little background
Vice-Presidents are like deputy speakers and they form the Bureau of
the Parliament which deals with administrative, financial and
organisational matters. The Quaestors are like shop stewards for
MEPs dealing with their personal concerns. Political decisions are
taken by the Conference of Presidents which comprises all the
political group leaders. Just to complete the picture, there are
Conferences of Committee Chairs and Delegation Chairs. We Brits are
not the only ones who set up Committees!
A mountain of debt
And now, after all that organisation guff (well it only happens
every 2 ½ years), for something completely different. I was
fascinated to read an article in the Sunday Times business section
about our UK indebtedness. This is relevant in the context of our
retaining triple A credit rating, when many other countries have
been marked down. It seems that the sum of our indebtedness is 507%
of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and the breakdown of that is
government debt 81%, corporate debt 99%, household debt 98% and
financial sector 219%. These are fairly eye-watering numbers and the
financial sector figures in particular look like a reason for the
problems of liquidity in the markets.
Confidence is all
And yet, if you consider the fact that some people have mortgages
geared at up to 6 times their income and are currently able to meet
their payments, one can view 507% in a different perspective.
Namely, that even such high levels of debt can be managed and
eventually paid off over time provided the lenders have confidence
in our ability to do it and that is the crucial factor behind what
George Osborne is doing to tackle our public sector deficit.
Confidence is all, without it we could go bust very quickly. That is
why we have to endure all these painful cuts so we get back to
living within our means and can then start to reduce overall debt.
It will take some time and in the meantime a little humility and
restraint by interest groups like bankers, doctors, civil servants
and so on, will not go amiss.
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