Christchurch Liberal Democrats

Graham's blog Friday 11 June 2010

Sorry not to have written for the last fortnight. The week of 24 May was a Parliamentary recess week, during which I represented Parliament's Liberal Group at a conference in Beijing at which 100 parliamentarians from across the EU met the Chinese Communist Party; and the week of 31 May was a UK school holiday week during which I sailed a 28' boat from Plymouth to Brest with my fifteen year old son.

This week I have been in Brussels and in Cyprus, the latter in my role as a member of Parliament's contact group for relations with Turkish Cypriots, who face widespread discrimination within the EU as a result of the failure of talks to re-unify the island.

Since I seek in this newsletter to provide information which is not normally found in the UK press or broadcast media, please allow me to summarise some of the developments of the past three weeks in Brussels.

On migration, there have been further talks among ministers to improve the handling of unaccompanied children arriving illegally in the EU, sometimes the victims of sex-trafficking. The EU's external borders co-operation agency, Frontex, has just celebrated its fifth anniversary. As a result of better co-operation between the EU and the countries of origin or transit, the numbers of people seeking to migrate illegally to the EU have fallen, though to some extent we have simply increased the pressure of migration elsewhere.

On the economy, readers of the UK press will know that much of the attention of economy and finance ministers, who met on Monday of this week, is still taken up with the challenges of sovereign debt (eg Greece) and private debt (recapitalisation of the banks), to say nothing of new rules on banking supervision. The outlook is a little better than it was. EU solidarity seems to have worked in calming the sovereign debt markets, though Portugal has just had to pay heavily for a new tranche of borrowing. Governments have taken seriously the challenge of cutting public debt and improving their balances of payments; a state aid scoreboard published by the Commission at the end of May shows that guarantee umbrellas for banks seem to have worked, with only about one-tenth of the funds provided actually having been called on, and the EU's gradual emergence from recession is confirmed in the latest unemployment statistics, which show a slight but not horrific rise in unemployed people from March to April to an average of just over 10% of the workforce. (I do not wish to sound unconcerned; every case of a person without a job should and does worry MEPs.)

At the European Commission, three of the EU's women Commissioners have been particularly active: Neelie Kroes (NL, LibDem) has presented her plans for the EU's digital agenda (see previous newsletter) to national government ministers in Council and to MEPs in Parliament's education and culture committee. The MEPs reacted by stressing the need for copyright protection, security on the internet and overcoming the digital divide between young and old. Cecilia Malmstrom (S, LibDem) has provisionally sealed a deal with the US authorities on the sharing of banking data in the fight against terrorism; it will need to be agreed to by ministers and MEPs. Cecilia has also persuaded the 27 interior ministers finally to agree to the Commission's proposals to guarantee defendants in legal proceedings abroad the right to interpretation and translation. And Androulla Vassiliou (CY, LibDem) has unveiled a major study on gender inequality in education across the EU. Commissioner Vassiliou, who is in charge of education and culture, has also kindly accepted an invitation to visit Wells Cathedral School next month to look at their pioneering work as one of the EU's premier music schools. (Fortunately, the head teacher there is a woman.)

In the Council of Ministers, the 27 foreign ministers met in Sarajevo on 2 June with their counterparts from the western Balkan countries. Though no early perspective of EU membership is on the cards for these countries, much is being done to help them to improve their government and make it easier for their citizens to get visas to EU countries. The European Council meeting next week (heads of state and government summit) is expected however to discuss Iceland's application for EU membership.

Agriculture ministers met in Spain last week to discuss the future of the CAP and environment ministers are meeting today to discuss options for increasing from 20% to 30% the EU's emissions reduction target over the coming ten years.

In Parliament, the transport committee has approved draft laws extending to bus, coach and boat passengers the protection already offered to airline and railway passengers against cancellations and delays to services. And our foreign affairs committee sent first the Iranian foreign minister and then the Israeli ambassador to the EU away with fleas in their ears about their countries' recent behaviour.

Two pieces of very good news to end on. First, the European Commission has proposed a simplification of the rules governing EU grants, long overdue, which would cut a lot of red tape for recipients of grants below EUR 50,000. Second, when Hungary appealed on 25 May for 2 million sandbags to help combat flooding it had almost immediate offers from other EU countries of 2.12 million. The European Civil Protection Mechanism works!

I will be in Taunton tomorrow at a Lib Dem general election debrief and in Parliament in Strasbourg next week, from where I will report next Friday.