It is sometimes striking, how blissfully ignorant some Eurosceptics are even of basic facts about the Union that they seek so assiduously to denigrate.

In the European Parliament's Constitutional Affairs committee last week, Ashley Mote (elected as UKIP and now a member of Mr Le Pen's far-right group) questioned Commissioner Wallstrom on "what majority is needed to ratify the new Reform Treaty?"!

Even Sixth Formers would usually know that any new treaty must be ratified by all member states to come into force. But someone who has been an MEP for three years should surely have some grasp of the basics!

The leading anti-European campaigner Dan Hannan MEP, who moonlights as a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph, has attempted to avoid the awkward fact (from his point of view) that the amendments agreed at the European Council to replace the Constitutional Treaty amount to very little indeed in the way of major constitutional change for Britain, by arguing that we should have a referendum instead on the accumulated changes to the EU that have taken place since we first joined.

This is akin to saying that the changes to the composition of the House of Lords should trigger a national referendum on the whole of the British constitution. After all, this too has evolved by incremental changes, none of which have been subject to a referendum.

Such a vote - also mooted by those arguing for the British constitution to be codified in a single document - would have some interesting parallels with the French vote on the now abandoned Constitutional Treaty. A vote on the British constitution as it stands would have no guarantee of it being approved. Some would vote against it because they object to a hereditary monarchy, others because they disagree with the electoral system for the House of Commons, still more because they don't like the House of Lords (as it is or as it is mooted). Some might vote against because they think their part of the UK should leave and become an independent country. And yet others would ignore all these issues and relish the opportunity just to vote against the government or the "establishment".

This coalition of "noes" would not get us anywhere in solving any of the individual issues currently being discussed in terms of reforming the British system. But it does illustrate the inherent dangers of holding single Yes/No referenda on an amalgamation of complex inter-related issues.

Federalists are in despair. Far from being delighted with the outline for a Reform Treaty agreed by the European Council in June, as most Eurosceptics would lead you to believe, federalists have much to moan about.

The idea of a "constitution" has been abandoned. Ditto for the EU's Foreign Minister. The president of the European Council will become semi-permanent with a 30 months (instead of the current rotating six month) term of office - meaning that the president of the Intergovernmental European Council, chosen by the Prime Ministers of the member states, will become more prominent at the expense of the President of the Commission elected by the European Parliament. There is to be no qualified majority voting on tax, on foreign policy or on security. Foreign policy is to remain firmly intergovernmental. The Commission's "embassies" around the world are now to come under the joint responsibility of the Council and the Commission, allowing member states to have greater control over them and to place their own staff in them. The Charter of Rights has been partially neutered. There are more opt-outs for member states, not least the UK.

Either Britain's Eurosceptics are far too blinkered to notice this, or else they are deliberately ignoring it because they want to frighten people into believing that any changes to the current EU treaties mean a step towards a more federal system, which they anyway characterise as a centralised superstate. Don't expect any of them to dwell on any of the above subjects.

It's now been several days since the outline of an EU Reform Treaty was agreed at the European Council summit, and the Open Europe/Tory/UKIP campaign against it has got off to a bad start. Despite being loud and shrill it is clearly not convincing many people.

Although Open Europe are fond of claiming that British businesses are sceptical about the EU and the benefits of the internal market, this is not borne out by the evidence. A poll released by Business for New Europe showed that 52% of business leaders supported the new Treaty with just 31% opposed. The Confederation of European Business (Business Europe), which includes the CBI, is the latest organisation to welcome the proposed new treaty, saying that "the European Union comes out reinforced and reinvigorated".

Meanwhile, in the House of Commons, Tony Blair used his penultimate appearance as Prime Minister to demolish David Cameron in a debate over the new treaty. While the usual suspects on the Tory benches, led by Bill Cash and David Heathcoat-Amory, made their outlandish claims about 'Brussels' taking over Britain, Ken Clarke pointed out to his hapless 'leader' that the provision in the new treaty to increase the role of national parliaments in EU legislation was one of the recommendations made by the Conservative party's "Democracy Taskforce". Cameron could not produce a single substantive reason why a referendum should be held on the treaty and was, as Blair pointed out, just "going through the motions".

The surprise defection of Quentin Davies from the Tory benches to Labour was a huge shock to Cameron and marked the end of a very successful final week for Tony Blair. Davies, who was the Chairman of the Conservative Group on Europe, denounced his leader in an incendiary letter saying that the Tory party had "ceased to believe in anything" and that "a sense of mission had been replaced by a PR agenda". He added that he could not remain in the Conservative party if it sought to leave the European People's Party.

Quentin Davies is the thirteenth MP or MEP to leave the Conservatives to join Labour or the Lib Dems since 1992. During this time, just two Conservative peers have joined UKIP. Mr Davies' defection underlines how Europhile Tories have been marginalised by successive party leaders and that after fifteen years of vicious infighting, the pro-Europeans are still being pushed out.

So, the deal has been done - in the early hours of this morning. Many of us in the Council building feared that Polish intransigence would last throughout the night and longer, but eventually they too compromised at about three a.m.. I've lost count of the number of interviews I've done for British, French, German, Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg TV and radio throughout the long day and night, but hopefully there will be no need for another summit on these issues for many years to come.

The Constitutional Treaty has been replaced by a practical set of reforms to the current European Union. They will make it work more efficiently and will improve parliamentary scrutiny and democratic accountability. This is a result to be welcomed. Euro-obsessives that want Britain to leave Europe (and, presumably, become part of America) will try to scare people with their ususal froth, but any objective look at the agreement shows that their complaints are fibs or exaggerations. Indeed, UKIP leader Nigel Farage was looking distincly forlorn, not sure what he could complain about, when I debated with him on BBC this morning - he fell back on quoting an article that has been in the treaty since Maastricht, 15 years ago.

Indeed, of the issues that the Eurosceptics focussed on, almost all have disappeared or been neutralized:

* The term "constitution" has been abandoned.

* On the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a new clause says "In particular, for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in title 4 of the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable to the United Kingdom."

* On the Foreign Minister, the role stays as High Representative, as it is called already now, and EU foreign policy will be decided by "The European Council and the Council acting unanimously", without the European Courts having a say over it. It is specified that none of this will effect the "existing legal basis, responsibilities, and powers of each member state,"

* In the field of justice and home affairs, where there is a switch from unanimity to majority voting, there are opt-outs for Britain.

Curiously, two items which Eurosceptics continue to criticise are things that, if they thought about them for a few seconds, they might appreciate.

* One is the longer-term president of the European Council (30 months instead of six months). This could lead to a strengthening of the intergovernmental European Council presidency at the expense of the Commission presidency. That is certainly why the anti-federalist French support it.

* The other is the "External Action Service". At present, EU external representations across the globe are run by the Commission. This change is designeed to give Council (i.e. national governments) a say in running and staffing them. Another step away from, rather than towards, a federal system.

However, Tory and UKIP critics just don't want to know and are simply focussed on finding fault with any change.

On the other side, federalists will be disappointed. The Italian and Belgian governments are muttering about too much having been sacrificed to placate the Brits, the Dutch, the Poles and the French. The European Parliament will be unhappy, as will the 22 countries who wished to retain the Constitutional Treaty intact.

BBC Europe chief and blogger Mark Mardell's assessment is interesting. Although BBC impartiality means he has to treat the Eurosceptics seriously and give them coverage they don't deserve, he clearly proclaims a victory for the government, saying: "Tony Blair can claim that he has won all his red lines. Of course, many will feel this was utterly predictable and of course Conservatives and other will say that there is plenty here that deserves a referendum. But Mr Blair has made their job that much harder."

Indeed a referendum seems hard to justify. Britain has never had a referendum to ratify an international treaty, and it would be odd to start with a minor one. We similarly have never had a referendum on issues that are far more important and that really interest the public, like the creation of the national health service, compulsory education, university fees, the death penalty, the monarchy. We are a parliamentary democracy - a British tradition we are generally proud of. To argue that a referendum is justified because the president of the European Council will have a 30-month instead of 6-month term of office is ludicrous.

But I predict that it won't stop the Torygraph, the Mail, the Sun, the Express UKIP, the Conservative party and the BNP demanding one!

British Eurosceptics, who let us not forget, are a highly organised and well financed network, are working themselves up into a frenzy over the European Council discussions on replacing the Constitutional Treaty with a pragmatic set of amendments to the current European treaties.

The Eurosceptic press is full of articles and leaders spitting bile about Europe, and claiming that “Blair is just hours from betraying Britain” (Express), “Blair to surrender” (Telegraph), that Blair could “sell us down the river to the faceless EU politicians and bureaucrats who run Europe. There is no middle road at this travelling road show of snake oil salesman and three card tricksters..” (Sun)

Charming!

Tory politicians are equally at it. Hague contributes to the Sun’s diatribe, while Heathcoat Amory tells outright fibs when he says that “80 percent of our laws are imposed by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels”. He knows perfectly well that “bureaucrats” don’t make European laws – ministers from national governments and elected MEPs do – and in any case the figure of 80 percent of our laws coming from Europe is contradicted by the House of Commons library estimates of nine percent.

The Telegraph reports “EU reform chaos as Blair and Brown fail to agree” while the Financial Times reports the opposite “Brown and Blair find rare unity on defending 'red lines' “.

Some pro-European voices are allowed a few lines in some papers:

• “Unless Europe gets its act together, the world will continue to ignore it (writes Timothy Garton Ash for the Guardian)

• "Come 2009, when the US gets a new president, the EU must be ready to speak in a voice that will actually be listened to.". "The presidency's reduced package of functionally necessary institutional changes is a pragmatic, not an ideological response to the present impasse. We can see nothing in the German presidency's approach to these issues that conflicts in any way with British national interests." (Letter in the Financial Times from Lords Dykes, Hannay of Chiswick, Kerr of Kinlochard, and Peter Sutherland – none of them Labour, by the way).

• "There is no doubt that some provisions of the old constitutional treaty were misconceived, but there are other measures which should be retained in a new treaty, which are sensible responses to the EU's expansion from 15 to 27 member states in the last three years. The proposals to end the rotating presidency, to merge the two foreign affairs roles, to reform voting weights in the European Council and to give national parliaments a greater role in the decision-making process are among the measures that should attract support from those who genuinely wish to see the EU work better." (Letter from Lord Brittan of Spennithorne QC, Mr Roger Carr, Mr Guy Dawson, Mr Niall FitzGerald, Sir Philip Hampton, Mr Vijay Patel, Sir Mike Rake, Mr Roland Rudd, Mr Bryan Sanderson, Ms Rosemary Thorne, Mr Bill Thomas, Lord Tugendhat).

But the Eurosceptic papers appear not to want to publish dissenting letters or even factual corrections. We are in for a battle between the unelected press barons and the elected government on an issue on which the former have prepared the ground for years with their relentless depiction of the Europe as akin to the bubonic plague.

While much of the talk around the parliament is about this week’s summit, which kicks off in Brussels tomorrow, we are still in the midst of a normal parliament session in Strasbourg.

This week has seen the parliament again demonstrate that it deserves its reputation as a world leader on animal welfare welfare by voting to ban the import of dog and cat fur in the EU.

There are some ghastly statistics about the use of dog and cat fur, with a single coat costing the lives of 24 cats, while millions of dogs and cats are slaughtered each year because of the trade.

Labour MEPs actually started campaigning for a ban over eight years ago, and with some tremendous support from EU citizens the issue was recognised by Parliament and the Council.

Meanwhile, the intensely fought battle over vodka in the parliament, ( a political one rather than some form of drinking competition in the Swan Bar) that really took off during Finland’s presidency looks like it has finally been resolved.

Poland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia all joined Finland in demanding that only vodka made from grain and potatoes could be described as vodka, a situation other countries who made vodka from fruit or sugar (like Britain) were deeply unhappy with.

Long meetings had failed to break the deadlock while angry emails have flown across cyberspace with the war of words at one point desending into wild accusations about some vodkas not made from potatoes or grain, containing cow slurry!

However, finally the parliament have adopted a compromise which means vodka may indeed be produced from things other than potatoes and grain, but must say so prominently on the label.

Importantly for Britain, the new rules also state that whisky cannot contain flavourings or sweetners, a measure which will protect Britain’s huge whisky industry from inferior imitators.

I stumbled across this interesting take on Europe from a Latin American writer.

"I visited Europe for the first time in 1950, sent to study at the University of Geneva and to sit in on courses at the ecole D'Hautes Etudes International. Switzerland was intact. But as I traveled the continent I saw the urban chasms left by the Blitzkrieg in London and by the R.A.F. in Dresden. Vienna was occupied by the three then‑allied powers (the U.S.A., Britain, France and the USSR). Large effigies of Lenin and Stalin covered the Hofsburg. The great hotels, occupied by the occupiers, were unavailable and one would look for rooms in boarding houses. Leaving Vienna was a more hazardous event than coming in: only the good offices of a friendly French diplomat gave me an exit permit and I was on my way to a devastated Italy. Shoeless children offered sciusa shoeshine. Theft was rampant, men in very shabby clothes cluttered in third class cartridges with bags held together by rope. It was the world pictured by De Sica and Rossellini, while in France my friends lived in unheated apartments as the collaborationist debate heated up a world of ambiguous innocence and guilt, but all related to the Bosch, the German enemy. You needed coupons to buy almost everything in Britain and the magnificent cathedral at Cologne was badly hurt.

Half a century later, Europe is the largest economic and commercial bloc in the world. With 500 million inhabitants, it possesses the highest level of education, communications and general well‑being in the planet. In population, wealth and trade, it surpasses the U.S.A. The pain of the postwar period I lived in 1950 is gone. Today Europe, in general terms, breathes satisfaction.

When Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman joined Konrad Adenauer that very year of my student days in 1950 to plant the seeds of the European Community, they were moved by a fervent desire: that there would never be another war between France and Germany. That the periodic catastrophes of 1870, 1914 and 1939, should never again happen.

Built on the axis of good will between France and Germany, today Europe is, in a large measure, a success that its citizens take for granted. Nonetheless, the historic will that lead to the creation of the E.E.C, precisely because it was so successful, tends to be forgotten. There is a European youth that doesn't think twice about the past. The present is pleasant and comfortable. Frontiers are open, popular culture does not require a passport, the past is over, history is forgotten."

From Carlos Fuentes, Latin America and Europe, Conference 1 June 2007

Reading through the briefing by the Eurosceptic think-tank Open Europe on the proposals for a new treaty, I was struck by several glaring omissions.

It makes predictions on what is likely to be in the treaty, mentioning the replacement of the six month rotating presidency, merging the two EU spokesmen on foreign affairs, voting weights in the Council of Ministers and the proposal to reduce the number of Commissioners.

However, despite seeing fit to claim that a revised treaty will not increase democratic accountability and will give the EU more powers, both of which are palpably incorrect, it fails to mention one of the proposals that will form the core of any revised treaty - namely, making all European legislation subject to the double approval of national governments and the directly elected European Parliament. Indeed, a revised treaty would also give national parliaments far more influence over their ministers and enhance their ability to scrutinise legislative proposals from the Commission. Both of these measures would greatly enhance parliamentary scrutiny of European legislation, something which I am sure even the most rabid Eurosceptic would accept is a good thing, and it is most surprising that a supposedly reputable think-tank would see fit to completely ignore it.

Moreover, Open Europe claims that 54% of UK Chief Executives think that the benefits of the common market are outweighed by the cost of regulation. Yet this apparent dissatisfaction doesn't square with the stance of Business for New Europe, an independent group of business leaders, which cites a poll showing that 52% of business leaders support a new treaty, with just 31% opposed. In the words of Sir Philip Hampton, Chairman of Sainsbury's, "The key aim for business is the development of an effective single market. The main provisions of the amending treaty should help achieve that."

By the way, any sufferes from insomnia who want to see the issue of the new treaty debated by myself, Tory europhobe MEP Dan Hannan, Robert Evans and Telegraph correspondent, Bruno Waterfield should click here http://www.maramoja.tv/index2.html

Over the next seven days the Sun has set itself the task of saving Britain from a “draconian new superstate”.

Thankfully they have kept things in perspective. Their urgent battle to save Britain from “surrender” is deemed less newsworthy than Michael Barrymore, Big Brother and a drunk soldier stripping off. Only then is Britain truly worth saving.

And as predictable as a soused squaddie in their birthday suit, is the Sun’s attempt to hoodwink (as they like to say) its readers into fearing any reform by publishing its own version of the treaty, which bears almost no resemblance to what is actually up for discussion.

The Sun’s version of the treaty includes:

"A PERMANENT EU President with 3,500 staff.
UNELECTED European judges getting unprecedented powers to set UK law.
BRITAIN surrendering its seat on the UN Security Council.
AN EU foreign minister representing the UK on international issues.
SLASHING Britain’s voting powers by a THIRD.
GIVING UP for good Britain’s hard-won veto on EU directives.
BOWING to EU laws on criminal justice and policing.
A RAFT of job-destroying shopfloor laws.
DESTROYING the City’s reputation as the world’s greatest money market.
HANDING the European Commission the power to meddle in any part of British laws it chooses.”

Every one of these 10 items is a tribute to the imagination of Sun journalists.

In fact, the EU will not have a permanent president but one that serves 30 months, instead of the current six, merely chairing summit meetings. The 3,500 staff it mentions is a statistic plucked from thin air.

European judges have never and will never be able to set UK law, they merely adjudicate when there is a dispute over EU laws previously agreed by government ministers and MEPs.

The claim Britain will have to surrender her seat at the UN is bunkum as is the preposterous suggestion that the treaty is out to destroy the City’s reputation or will cost British jobs.

If an EU foreign minister is introduced he or she will only represent Britain’s interests when we agree with the other 26 Member States on an issue. If there is a difference of opinion, like there was on Iraq, then there is no common position to represent. In either case Britain, like every other EU country, will continue to express its own views through its own foreign minister.

The current proposals would actually increase Britain’s voting power quite considerably, which just shows the Sun’s journalist can’t even add up.

The only point with a grain of truth in is the justice and policing veto, which will be discussed. Britain will want to keep this and it seems highly unlikely Blair will leave without some sort of veto or derogation in place.

The Sun is running a poll alongside the story which will inevitably conclude that 90 odd percent of its readers don’t want Blair to sign a new treaty, which they will then proudly proclaim is the voice of the British people. Which of course it isn’t, it is what Sun readers think of the imaginary treaty they have made up themselves, which I wouldn’t want Blair to sign either.

If the Sun gave as much importance to the bare facts as it does to bare bums, it might one day be able to claim it speaks for the British people over Europe. Until then it is helping to form opinions based on outrageous lies.

Today I took part in very constructive discussions with members of the House of Commons EU Scrutiny Committee and the House of Lords EU Committee in the bi-annual meeting they jointly have with British MEPs.

Part of the discussion focussed on what is likely to replace the EU Constitutional Treaty. Although actual negotiations will only begin in a new ICG in the autumn (if one is called by next week's European summit), the outline of the likely scenario is beginning to emerge.

Only one MP present, Heathcote-Amory, took the line of the extreme Europhobes claiming that it is somehow illegitimate to try to bridge the gap between the majority of states who want to retain the bulk of the Constitutional Treaty and the minority who have reservations about it, including the two that rejected it outright. After all, the latter two are now saying they wish to negotiate a new treaty.

The idea of a set of amendments to the current treaties, which would focus on practical improvements to the current EU system, generally found favour - certainly among the Lords, but also MPs present at the meeting.

If the new amending treaty focuses on measures such as changing the term of office of the Council Presidency from six months to 30 months, extending majority voting in areas where this is acceptable to member states, enhancing parliamentary scrutiny, merging the positions of the Commissioner for External Relations and the High Representative for External Relations, clarifying that the Charter of Rights has no implications for purely domestic legislation and cutting the size of the Commission and the European Parliament, then it should, in principle, be capable of having wide-spread support in both the Commons and the Lords - not withstanding the temptations of some Eurosceptics to frighten people into thinking that it would mean the end of Britain as a country.

It would also be difficult to justify having a referendum on such changes. Britain has never ever ratified an international treaty by means of a referendum. Indeed, it has never had a nation-wide referendum on any political issue, however important or controversial except for once in 1975. Why on earth we should have one on changing the term of office of the chairmanship of one of the EU institutions from six months to 30 months is beyond me!

Debate over what to do about the Constitutional Treaty has finally reached the mainstream British media.

The usual suspects have embraced hyperbolic nonsense, ignoring the pragmatic and vital reforms the original treaty offered, as I explain in more detail in my article for EU Observer. You can read it by clicking here.

The BBC’s Europe correspondent, Mark Mardell, blogs on the forthcoming summit and rightly points out that it is absurd to suggest Blair is tying Brown’s hands by agreeing a deal (as some papers are suggesting), as Gordon will be responsible for signing any treaty when he becomes Prime Minister in a couple of weeks.

Mardell and the Independent both fear the summit could get bogged down by Poland’s desire to introduce a voting system based on the square root of a country’s population. The reform of the voting system in the Constitutional Treaty intended to re-balance the weight of votes in the Council, which has slid towards smaller countries since the EU’s enlargement. By basing votes on population, bigger countries (like Britain) would be more fairly represented, while ensuring 55% of countries have to approve any directives and regulations would protect smaller member states (like Ireland).

The square root system has no chance of being implemented but the worry is Poland will refuse to budge on the issue, a result which Mardell suggests might be secretly welcomed by Gordon.

He presumably thinks that deadlock caused by another country will save Gordon from a pounding from the Eurosceptic press but a pounding from the Eurosceptic press is as inevitible as the endless coverage the same papers give to Big Brother.

The EU must reform if it is to work. We cannot continue to duck the issue and the sooner member states can reach an agreement acceptable to all the better – something Gordon knows!

I came across this typically restrained piece by Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail (don't worry, I don't make a habit of reading the Mail!). It appears that, aside from the usual diatribe, she has completely misunderstood a number of issues regarding a revised European treaty.

Aside from the usual bunkum about the treaty creating a new EU President (we already have an EU presidency which changes every six months - the treaty simply provides for a two-and-a-half year chair) she claims that merging the two posts of External Relations Commissioner and Council High Representative on Foreign Affairs, would mean the end of an independent British foreign policy! A new EU foreign affairs spokesperson would merely speak for the EU where there was a common position. She asks the question "what would happen if British foreign policy contradicted that of the EU". But, if Britain (or any country) objected, then there could be no common EU policy in the first place.

She recycles the tired Eurosceptic cliché that the EU is "anti-democratic" - conveniently ignoring the fact that the measures contained in a revised treaty would strengthen the role of the directly elected MEPs in the European Parliament (by making all EU legislation subject to approval by it and the Council of Ministers) and increasing the powers of legislative scrutiny by national parliaments. Besides, the EU is already the most democratically accountable of all the supranational organisations the UK is a member of including the WTO, NATO, IMF and World Bank, bodies which never seem to feature in her concerns about democracy.

Moreover, Phillips also reveals her own cynical double standards. She demands a referendum on a revised treaty only because it's the next best thing to a referendum on withdrawal from the EU.

I did chuckle when I read her description of the EU as "a failed, backward-looking project whose days are numbered"! In the words of Nobel peace prize winner John Hume, "the EU is the most successful example of conflict resolution in history", while Paddy Ashdown described it as "a political miracle". The EU is not perfect, but neither is any other political institution, and the reforms expected to be retained in a new treaty would enhance its effectiveness and its democratic accountability and help us to deliver the best policy results for our citizens on those matters when our countries are highly interdependent. If Melanie Phillips wants to see something that genuinely is "a failed and backward looking project", she should try reading her own columns.

Have just seen an utterly ridiculous press release from the Conservative leader Tim Kirkhope MEP, accusing Labour MEPs of being “in chaos” and contradicting the government’s position on the Constitutional Treaty in today’s vote in the European Parliament.

The Tories desperately cobbled together a press release with some outrageously selective editing of the report; once the report is read in full it is quite clear the press release is complete tosh.

The Conservative press release reads: “17 Labour MEPs voted in favour of the Brok report which committed the European Parliament to ‘reaffirm its commitment to achieving a settlement of the ongoing constitutional process of the European Union which is based on the content of the Constitutional Treaty, possibly under a different presentation’"

A quick glance at the actual report shows that the paragraph above (paragraph six) is cut off mid-sentence. It actually finishes “but taking account of the difficulties that have arisen in some Member States" – the key point which they deliberately cut out.

The Tories also conveniently ignored any mention of the following paragraph (paragraph seven unsurprisingly), which is also the exact position of the Labour government, namely to have an inter-governmental conference this autumn to negotiate a new treaty.

It will be interesting to see if this weak concoction actually makes the papers. Hopefully not, but if it does it will not have been the first time an absurd Tory press release from Europe has made column inches in some of the right-wing rags.

The election of a new French President (who faces no new Presidential or Parliamentary elections for another five years), coinciding with an Intergovernmental Conference to quickly adopt a set of amendments to the current treaties, could provide us with an opportunity to solve one problem that has been niggling away at us for some time now - the issue over the Strasbourg Parliament seat.

We must try to convince France that maintaining the seat in Strasbourg is not in its interests. The refusal of France to budge on this issue is damaging its reputation across Europe, not to mention the reputation of the EU itself (the Strasbourg seat was a major factor when the Dutch rejected the Constitutional Treaty). The constant travelling MEPs and their staff (not to mention lobbyists, journalists, and so on) have to do every month to Strasbourg from Brussels not only presents a logistical nightmare, it constantly generates bad press over the wastefulness of the EU and the hypocrisy over the EU's bold environmental targets when travel between the two cities leaves a huge carbon footprint.

Mr Sarkozy presents himself as a bold reformer. What better opportunity to solve a problem that will otherwise continue to fester for many years?

UK Sports Minister Richard Caborn was in Parliament today to meet MEPs to discuss the Commission's forthcoming white paper on the future of sport in the EU.

There was a general fear that the Commission white paper will not adequately address three major issues: the number of "home-grown" members of a team; the collective sale of TV rights; and placing spending caps on teams.

Qualified football referee (and Conservative MEP in his spare time) Chris Heaton-Harris was alone in taking a different view on TV rights. While he believed that selling TV rights collectively is better for the game, he stuck to his guns about the rights of some clubs to sell TV rights individually, such as Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain. This is not a view widely held as not only does this give these two clubs an unfair advantage in their own leagues, it also gives them an unfair advantage when competing in European competition. Chris also argued against spending caps (which have proved successful in the Rugby and Football leagues), saying they contravened the free market.

An area everyone agreed on, and an area Richard was extremely keen to see at the fore of the discussion was the issue over "home-grown" players. How could we implement this objective, that sport's governing bodies (such as UEFA), national governments and the European Parliament all support, without falling foul of EU employment laws? "Leave it to the Courts" is the Commission's recommendation but unfortunately the Courts might declare the practice illegal under current legislation regarding the free movement of labour. It would be better to have clarification that the Commission considers the UEFA 'home-grown player' rules to be acceptable.

After the meeting, I had lunch with UEFA President Michel Platini and Press Officer William Gaillard who agree with the above. However, I couldn't resist the opportunity to upbraid them on their comments on Liverpool supporters at the European Cup Final in Athens, and implicitly, all English club supporters for travelling to matches without tickets. They are not the only ones to do that and there is little that can be done about it. What UEFA should do is focus on what it CAN do, namely have a proper system of checking tickets at the stadium. I know people who walked straight in without tickets, which is ludicrous and will only encourage ticketless supporters to try it on in the future. There was also a problem of forged tickets being sold to supporters.

On the last point the University of Leeds is setting up a new Anti-Forgery Research Centre (ARC) which is at the forefront of developing technologies such as invisible barcodes that could help prevent this problem in the future. I am putting them in touch with UEFA.

The football season may have ended, but the debate on the governance of football is hotting up, not just with the Sheffield United’s legal challenge to the West Ham decision, but also with the preparation of the European Commission’s White Paper on sport. The latter is in response to the Independent Review of European Football, on which I served last year, and will be an indication of whether the Commission accepts the view that European law must be interpreted in a way which gives leeway to sporting authorities to organise their game appropriately, without falling foul of rules, such as those on economic competition policy, drawn up for other purposes.

UEFA’s home-grown player scheme, and the idea that all leagues should sell TV rights centrally with revenue distributed among all participating clubs, are two litmus test issues. The former could fall foul of a rigid interpretation of the EU’s principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of nationality, while the latter could fall foul of EU competition law. Yet both are important if we want to avoid football being monopolised by just two or three clubs in each country.

UEFA’s new President, Michel Platini, is in Brussels this week and I am due to meet him. UEFA’s Briefing on the White Paper quotes a speech of mine to the Council of Europe Conference on Sports Governance last September in which I said, on the subject of home-grown players, that: “We have won this debate. The Independent Review endorsed UEFA's rules regarding the limitations of squad sizes and the requirement for a proportion of the players to be home-grown. We do not consider that these requirements are in violation of European competition law or the rule of non-discrimination on the grounds of nationality. They are a proportionate response.”

But those opposed to some of these measures are also quoting me: Real Madrid’s consultant and lobbyist, Florian Muller, quotes my blog in the paper he has submitted to the Commission and the Parliament. Unfortunately, he is seeking to preserve the rights enjoyed by Real Madrid to sell its own TV rights individually, and thereby, with Barcelona, pocket most of the TV revenue engendered by the Spanish League.

He argues that there is no dominance of football at European level, as illustrated by the fact that no club has successfully defended the Champions League for the last two decades. True, but my point is that dominance is at national level, making more and more national leagues go the way of Scotland, with only two clubs ever winning it. The reasons are multiple (including the “jackpot” effect of qualifying for the Champions League, which gives the top clubs in each country revenues well above those of their competitors), but the individual selling of TV rights certainly accentuates the problem in Spain and Italy.

Leaked drafts of the Commission White Paper seem to show that they are being very cautious about taking on board all the ideas of the Independent Review. However, they do seem to recognize that the collective sale of TV rights is important, saying that “While in general, collective selling is incompatible with EU competition policy, it has been accepted by the Commission in certain cases in the area of sport. Collective selling is important for the redistribution of income and is thus a tool for achieving greater solidarity within sports.”

Let’s hope this remains there view when the final paper is published.

It's always interesting to see how newspapers are able to conjure vastly different headlines and stories from the same facts. One of the issues that gets the most hyperbolic reaction in the press is immigration. The Sun, Daily Mail and Express frequently talk of "floods" or "stampedes" of immigrants.

The release last week of Home Office statistics on the number of economic migrants from Bulgaria and Romania, who joined the EU at the start of 2007, needless to say, provoked a series of blustering headlines from right-wing tabloids none of whom can agree on the figures.

The Express ran with "92,000 east Europeans milk our benefits" adding that a "flood" of migrants had left taxpayers with a £102 million bill. The paper claimed that more than 4,500 "Eastern Europeans" were arriving in the UK. However, the Mail (which also cited "official figures") contended that the true figure was 120 Romanian and Bulgarian per day (fewer than 1,000 per week).

Meanwhile, the Guardian pointed out that "only 8,000 Romanian and Bulgarian migrants came to work in Britain the first three months after their countries joined the EU", noting that this figure was far lower than the claim made by certain tabloids that 300,000 would enter the UK. Indeed, the Scotsman continued in a similar vein, stating that "fewer than 200 migrants from Romania and Bulgaria applied for national insurance numbers to work in Scotland".

I'm sure I am not the only one to be slightly bemused by the disparity between these figures. Certainly, you could be forgiven for thinking that some sections of the right-wing press are fiddling the figures to fit their distortions about immigration levels.

Recent comments by Margaret Hodge have caused quite a stir! Margaret called for priority to be given to established British families over economic migrants for council housing claiming that, “We prioritise the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement others feel they have, we should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants.”

This is actually not true, as Ken Livingstone points out in an excellent rebuttal to Margaret’s claims in his article in Tribune. He points out the numerous mistakes she makes, a summary of which is below:

“Hodge is wrong. Her local council, Barking and Dagenham, was forced to point out that anyone entering the borough from the new eastern European states has to be a resident in the borough for 12 months and have been in full-time employment for 12 months before they can even apply to be placed on the council's housing register, and even then priority housing is allocated on need and the length of time on the waiting list. And non-European Union "economic migrants" don't enjoy even the most basic rights to housing. Legislation denies them any recourse to public funds for at least four years after their arrival in Britain.”

“EU accession state nationals do have certain rights - enshrined in EU treaties - but almost none are eligible for priority housing as they are nearly always in work. Only one in 800 local authority lettings are made to this group nationally.”

“Far from it being the case that immigrants are jumping the housing queue, the allocation policies for scarce affordable housing in London, together with the harsh realities of our national immigration policy, make it exceptionally difficult for immigrants to get housing, even if they face acute needs […] The real issue is that we need a lot more affordable housing.”