The days of the European City Guide (ECG) publishing scam could now be numbered following recent actions taken at EU level and by national courts.

Way back in 2003, the ECG was ordered to close for one year and fined €300,000 for misleading advertising by the government of Catalonia. However, those behind the ECG have stubbornly refused to obey this ruling, conducting a number of appeals and continuing with their bogus operations. I have learnt that the High Court of Justice of Catalonia has now rejected the ECG's appeal.

The Consumer Protection Cooperation regulation, which was transposed into EU law by the Member States in January, will see public enforcement authorities from the Member States working together to tackle cross-border scams and systematic abuses of EU consumer protection rules.

More recently, I reported here about the court judgement against Construct Data Verlag (CDV) in Vienna, where CDV agreed to stop sending their misleading "Fair Guide" business directory, which invited customers to verify the company details already printed on an attached form and to sign the response. By signing the form the respondent automatically and unwittingly placed an order which (CDV) then chased payment for.

Lastly, in March, the ECG was condemned by the Brussels Criminal court on the legal grounds of misleading advertising against the practice of business. Although the court did not order ECG to close, it imposed a fine of €275,000 on ECG which was also instructed to reimburse victims.

Although those behind the ECG seem determined to continue with these shameless scams by creating a number of offshoot bogus publishers (including CDV, Novachannel and DAD Deutscher Adressdienst GmbH), these recent developments will beef up the powers of police and public authorities and show that courts are consistently coming down hard on the ECG.

This week saw a flurry of coverage on the environmental cost of obliging the European Parliament to sit one week per month in Strasbourg instead of staying put in Brussels, thereby generating (according to a report by Professor John Whitelegg of the University of York) more than 20,000 tons of extra carbon dioxide (CO²) emissions due to the additional travel between the sites by MEPs, their assistants, journalists and lobbyists, not to mention the truckloads of documents transported each month.

Most MEPs, who also face considerable travel hassle in getting to Strasbourg, would love to change this situation. Unfortunately, it is not the Parliament itself that decides on the location of EU institutions, but the national governments, and it was the Edinburgh summit, chaired by John Major, that made it legally binding on the European Parliament to go 12 times a year to Strasbourg. So thanks John!

To sign the petition to have the Parliament located only in Brussels (saving the European taxpayer €200m per year as well as the environmental benefits) please visit www.OneSeat.eu.

A major concern of the British public right now is illegal immigration. Therefore, Eurosceptics attack the EU on this, even though the UK is not subject to the Schengen open-borders agreement and has retained the right to control its own borders. Because of this, I thought it would be of interest to talk about an EU agency that is helping to tackle illegal immigration into Europe.

The EU’s "Frontex" external border agency has recently seen remarkable success. Frontex has been patrolling the waters between the northwest coast of Africa and Spain’s Canary Islands (one of the most popular, but also dangerous, entry points into the EU for illegal immigrants, often duped by traffickers). The right-wing media like to portray this entry point as a stop-gap before they attempt to enter the UK. Although for the most part this isn’t actually true, I’m sure they will be pleased to know that Frontex successfully reduced the numbers of illegal immigrants arriving at the Canary Islands by 60% in the first three months of this year. Not only that, Frontex has helped save over 1,000 lives so far on a route that claimed some 6,000 lives in 2006.

This week the EU agreed to deploy rapid reaction units, under Frontex, which will be made up of some 450 national experts, made available at short notice of up to five working days to any member state whose borders are under urgent and exceptional strain by illegal migration, notably when trafficking gangs are involved. Frontex now has at its disposal over 20 aeroplanes, nearly 30 helicopters and more than 100 vessels as well as a variety of other equipment.

Now, this is the sort of measure that the Daily Mail and suchlike would normally applaud. So, why aren't they? Because, of course, it's an EU agreemenst, and it wouldn't do to welcome anything done at European level!

For more information about Frontex click here.

Following on from this month’s earlier decision by the European Commission to take legal action against Apple’s iTunes brand for their discriminatory practices against British consumers, the EU has again this week demonstrated its relevance for consumer protection.

Last week, the EU released figures showing a large increase in the number of dangerous goods withdrawn from sale across Europe. Children’s toys now form the biggest category of banned products, the vast majority of which were made in China. Products banned thanks to ‘Rapex’, the EU’s new rapid alert system, include a Superman figure that contained poisonous high-lead paint, a teddy bear which a child could take apart and choke on the parts and a skin cream that contained a fungus which presents a serious bacteriological risk.

Elsewhere, the EU handed out fines to three brewers for breaking competition laws. Heineken and Grolsch, two brands popular in the UK, along with Bavaria were fined by the European Commission for stifling competition by colluding to fix prices. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said the brewers had “carved up” the market between them, adding that such behaviour was “unacceptable.” Heineken has been fined €219m, Grolsch €31.7m and Bavaria €22.9m.

Eurosceptics harp on about us "never having been asked" about Europe, because Britain has only had one referendum on it. But, we have never had a national referendum on any aspect of our domestic constitution (monarchy, electoral system, Lords reform) or on any other international body we belong to (UN, NATO, WTO, to name just some that have major implications for our sovereignty) or any policy decision (death penalty, immigration, nuclear power, university fees, health service, pension system, etc) - all of which are subject to as much or more public interest as the EU.

The reason, of course, is that we have a proud tradition of being a parliamentary democracy, where issues are deliberated on in all their comlex detail, by our elected representatives. Long may it remain so!

Three assesssments of Blair's European legacy in today's press

The FT has a leader which refers to "Blair's eleventh hour championing of EU". It cliams that "The attempt to win over domestic opinion, to argue the pragmatic case (let alone with passionate conviction) why it serves British citizens to pool a small part of their sovereignty to meet the cross-border challenges of the era of globalisation, was all but abandoned. That is dereliction of political duty - and inexplicable. Britons have never been more familiarised and at ease with their European neighbours and many policy arguments inside the EU have tilted Britain's way. If Mr Blair had given half the time he devoted to Iraq to Europe, the position might be different. His belated attempt to resolve the constitutional mess might be more credible, his claim to be a champion of Europe less self-ascribed."


The Independent, also in a leader, refers to "a terrible failure to make the case for Europe". It says: "Mr Blair should not be trying to conceal what he is doing on Britain’s behalf in Europe. He should be up-front about it. If this institutional reorganisation is good for Britain, he should come out and say so unambiguously. His persistent failure to make the case for Europe has allowed popular prejudice and ignorance surrounding the EU to go unchallenged. The damage this does should not be underestimated. When it comes to the major challenges of our times such as climate change, peacekeeping and trade reform, Europe is indispensable. The unchecked growth of an anti-European mindset in Britain is diminishing our power to help to shape the world for the better."


Finally, with a different take, the Express, which claims that "Throughout his decade in Downing Street this Prime Minister has studiously avoided the verdict of the British people on the European Union. It can only be concluded that Mr Blair has failed to give the people a voice on Europe because he knows what that voice would say: no to greater integration, no to ridiculous European regulations and yes to a transfer of sovereignty away from Brussels and back to Britain. So it is disturbing to learn that in the few weeks before he quits office, Mr Blair is proposing to sign more powers away to the EU and will not give the British people a vote to either endorse or, much more likely, reject his proposals"

One would expect the Express to make such claims, but the other two are being a bit simplistic. Blair has frequently made keynote speeches on Europe (in addition to his Commons speeches at least four times a year after each European Council). Those Cardiff, Warsaw, and Brussels spring to mind, but there have been more), but they are simply not reported on very much in the press, nor, unfortunately, taken up much by others. Many of our newspapers give ample space to shrill Eurosceptic and xenophobic comments, but are reluctant to give space to the less exciting explanations of why the European Union is so vital.

Great to see EU regional funding being put to good use in developing the University of Hull's Business School (now with some 2000 students) and its new Logistics Institute which is attracting interest across Europe. The EU funding is contingent on them reaching out to help local businesses improve their operational efficiency, thereby bringing added value and extra jobs to the local economy.

The school, in a sensitively restored building, features state-of-the-art modern equipment. University lecturers can saunter into the lecture theatres carrying no more than a memory stick: notes, graphs, pictures et al can be projected on to screens and students' laptops. Instead of old blackboards, there is a high-tech screen to write on, which can immediately turn even the worst handwriting into printed text. I must tell Francis Jacobs (one off my co-authors)!

The EU won glowing headlines after European Parliament committees agreed to adopt caps on mobile phone roaming charges earlier in April.

It is particularly positive news for the people who believe the EU must start showing its relevance more visibly to its citizens, as it is an issue that affects the pockets of a large number of people.

Picking up on the public’s interest in the story, the BBC have decided to follow the process of following this particular bit of legislation from beginning to end.
If you click here, you can read how and why roaming charges became an issue for the Commission, and how Member States and MEPs will bring the legislation into existence, through committees, council meetings and parliament votes.

A useful little guide to co-decision procedures and on a piece of legislation which will probably end up saving you some money!

As a politician you get used to being misquoted - often deliberately so by your political opponents. However, it was distressing to find out earlier this week that I was completely misquoted by a benevolent source which inadvertently got my views on a couple of key issues completely the wrong way round. For the record, I do not support a Europe-wide referendum (I indeed explained my reason for this in a blog entry, which you can read by click here).

Nor have I said that it would be an outrage to support the deletion of the full text of the Charter of Rights from Part 2 of the Constitutional Treaty and its replacement by a single article containing a cross-reference to it.

Curious to be in a country where public opinion is very pro-Europe, but the government is Eurosceptic. Opinion polls show a solid 80% approval rating for the European Parliament, compared to about 20% for the national parliament. As one MP said, "The people are strongly pro-Europe, but still have to convince the government"

I am in Warsaw at the invitation of the the Polish Senate to speak about the future of the Constitutional Treaty, now that the prospects for negotiating a new version of it

The new right-wing Polish government was one of those who considered the treaty dead following the French referendum two years ago, but is now quite keen to get into new negotiations on it. However, they want to re-open the institutional package, which the French and Dutch leaders say they are happy with. In particular, they want to renegotiate the voting system in the Council of Ministers, to give each state a vote based on the square root of its population!!

No other country has shown the slightest interest in re-opening this particular issue, and they all accept the "double majority" system laid down in the Constitutional Treaty, whereby votes must represent a large majority of the population (66%) and a majority (55%) of states. This is felt to be fair on big and small States alike.

The square root theory does actually have a sound base in academic literature. The idea is that, with block votes, only the big units count, and cutting everyone back to their square root actually equalises the influence of individual citizens, whether they are in a big unit or a small one. It protects the smaller states, as it obviously cuts the larger ones' votes by more than the smaller ones.

However, the double majority system also protects smaller states, though in a different way, by requiring a majority of states as well as of the population and also by requiring a high majority in the population vote (65%) that cannot be attained by the bigger states alone.

Everyone suspects that the Poles really want to keep the old system of the current treaty of Nice, which gives them a disproportionately high number of votes (they have 27, compared to 29 for Germany which has more than double its population). Even Spain, which is of the same size as Poland and similarly over represented in the old system, is not seeking to reopen that issue (or any other aspect of the Constitutional Treaty).

The Polish ministers we met (the parliamentarians hardly mentioned the issue) said that that was not their intention at all, that they just want a better treaty, and that accusations that they are Eurosceptic are misplaced, as they support the principle of a supranational EU and the President has said that he would even like to see a European army.

Be that as it may, we are in for a difficult negotiation if Poland (and even more if other governments follow their example) want to reopen past agreements they have made that are contested by no-one else, not even the French or the Dutch.

There are signs of movement in the Netherlands - one of the two countries that rejected the Constitutional Treaty on reforming the European Union.

The Dutch government has submitted a paper to its parliament on how it sees the way forward. This document recognises that, far from being
overwhelmingly rejected, "there were 18 Member States that did embrace the treaty" and that "there is a need for a new discussion". It says that "the Netherlands is playing an active and constructive role in this discussion."

What is it that the Dutch government envisages coming out of these discussions? Not the current Constitutional Treaty without any changes, as it states quite clearly that "the previous government withdrew the Bill for ratifying the Constitutional Treaty and this government will not be re-submitting it".

Instead, it considers that a new Treaty should be negotiated, as "the Union manifestly cannot confront its current policy challenges on the basis of the Treaty of Nice". But this new treaty should retain much of the content of the Constitutional Treaty.

The government's paper says that "it is almost self-evident that certain elements of the Constitutional Treaty will be drawn on. One reason for this is that many Member States have already ratified the text. Furthermore, as discussions in the House have revealed many times, parts of the Constitutional Treaty will be useful in fulfilling the Netherlands desire to strengthen democracy and the EU's capacity for decisive action. In fact, even the Treaty's opponents in Parliament and society at large have conceded that certain proposals are clear improvements on the existing treaties."

In particular, according to the Dutch European Affairs Minister who I met yesterday, the institutional package contained in the Constitutional Treaty is worth retaining.

All this suggests that the Dutch problem is more one of presentation that the reality of the Constitutional Treaty. Although the government's coalition agreement states that they want a new Treaty that is "convincingly different from the previously rejected Constitutional Treaty in terms of its content, size and name", the government's paper goes on to list key issues that are, in fact, either cosmetic or already dealt with by the Constitutional Treaty.

The cosmetic changes are:
* to change the name, dropping the word "constitution", which changes nothing in law;
* to have a single article cross-referencing to the Charter of Rights, instead of incorporating it in full as Part II of the treaty;
* to drop the "symbols" of the Union like the flag and anthem, which, of course already exist and don't really need a reference in the treaty;
* to make it a treaty amending the pre-existing treaties, abandoning the codification of all the European treaties into a single text - again
no legal difference other than to make things more complicated (to the benefit of lawyers!);
* for new Treaty provisions to "spell out the rules and criteria for further enlargement" - again, these criteria exist, so spelling them out in the treaty is essentially a matter of increasing their visibility.

The other set of measures advocated is simply to give more emphasis to points that are anyway already in the Constitutional Treaty:
* the principle of subsidiarity, with a strengthening of national parliaments to assess measures for subsidiarity.
* the principle of the conferral of powers ie that the Union will only exercise those powers that the Member States have jointly decided to delegate to it
* an emphasis that some policy areas "are pre-eminently suited to a chiefly national approach including pensions, social security, fiscal matters, culture and health care" - does the Constitutional Treaty in any way suggest otherwise?
* support for new treaty provisions on cross-border environmental problems.

All these points are already in the Constitutional Treaty.

Now, I don't want to underestimate the importance of cosmetic changes (if only to diminish the chances of mis-understandings and the opportunities for wilfull distortions). Nor do I underestimate the need to draw more attention to things that are in the treaty. But I note that the solution the Dutch government wants would leave intact almost all the key reforms contained in the Constitutional Treaty.

EUX.tv has more on the Netherlands and the Constitutional Treaty here

Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, has written a fine article in the Financial Times which you can read by clicking here.

It stresses the importance of Britain playing a constructive role in solving the problems of the Constiutional Treaty rather than sitting out on the sidelines and losing influence in Europe.

The European Commission is preparing to start legal action against computer giant Apple and major record companies over the way they are discriminating against British consumers.

The Commission says that the way music is sold via iTunes violates consumer freedom as customers cannot buy music from countries other than the one they are residing in. Currently, customers living in the Euro-zone are charged €0.99, customers living in the UK are charged €1.17 and customers living in Denmark (which uses the Kroner) are charged €1.07.

The Commission has notified Apple and its music partners of its concerns and the firms have two months in which to respond. They can also request a face-to-face hearing before the Commission to present their case. The ultimate sanction available to the Commission is to fine guilty firms 10% of their annual global turnover. However, this is only likely to happen in the most extreme cases. Apple recorded sales of more than $19bn last year.

To read more click here.

Two hundred years after Hull's William Wilberforce led the Parliamentary campaign to ban slavery in Britain, we have to take action to tackle what amounts to a modern form of slavery - human trafficking.

Exploitative and inhumane, the existence of human trafficking is a scar on our society. Indeed, it is estimated that there are between 2,000 to 3,000 trafficked women and children in the UK. Moreover, taking action is difficult because trafficking is inextricably linked with transnationally organised crime. It is a problem that can effectively be combated by EU countries working together, sharing information and best practices on prevention and support for victims.

Two weeks ago, the UK government signed the EU Convention on human trafficking, while the "Pentameter" action plan, set up by the Home Office, has focused on policing and raising people's awareness of human trafficking. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) has recently been established in Sheffield, with further centres to be established around the UK.

We are all responsible for tackling this crime. If people have concerns that someone they know or have come into contact with has been trafficked, it is vital that they contact their local police station!

For further information on the UKHTC and the EU convention on human trafficking please visit www.ukhtc.org.

The EU’s Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) scheme appears to have finally caught the imaginination in the UK.

Last year, Yorkshire’s Wensleydale cheese began a campaign for the recognition the likes of champagne, parma ham, roquefort and Gorgonzola have already won.

Earlier this month Wensleydale progressed to the next stage of their campaign by taking 14,000 signatures of support (including mine) to the House of Commons in a bid to win the backing it needs from Defra before taking its case to Europe.

Now Yorkshire’s famous rhubarb triangle is aiming for PDO status. The area between Leeds, Pontefract and Wakefield was once responsible for over 90% of the world's rhubarb, which is renown for its forced growth in the dark and its subsequent sweeter, longer stalks (for more on how the rhubarb is grown click here and here).

Both rhubarb and Wensleydale cheese fully deserve to be recognised with a PDO, as they are unique products that only specific parts of Yorkshire can produce and should be protected from poor quality imitators.

Readers with a good memory might remember that the manafacturers of Yorkshire Feta, had to change their name after Greek feta was awarded a PDO. Shepherds Purse have settled on a new name, Fine Fettle Yorkshire, which will be available again from May.

One of the ideas floated on the future of the Constitutional Treaty is to hold a Europe-wide referendum across the 27 Member States.

This idea is superficially attractive: a single Europe-wide decision, instead of separate national decisions, on Europe's "rule book", could settle the divergence of views that has emerged.

However, the EU has no right, under the current treaties, to organise a Europe-wide referendum. The treaties would first need to be changed - by unanimous agreement and national ratification - to enable it to do so. Even if agreement were reached, it would take years.

So, the advocates of this idea are now calling instead for simultaneous national referenda - in every member state - and because several countries don't allow for referenda in their national constitutions, they argue that such referenda should only be consultative, not binding.

But holding a new set of national referenda now on the constitutional treaty would probably just confirm what we know already: that there is a divergence of views on it with most countries supporting it and a few against it. It would simply bring us, after a few more months, back to the question that Member States will face in June's European Council: how to overcome that divergence and find a compromise acceptable to all?