Political balances in the new Parliament

As the dust begins to settle, what is the wider impact of the European election result on the European Parliament?

The most commented on aspect is the setback for the Socialists and the strengthening of the centre-right EPP - though the latter effect is negated by the loss of the British Conservatives, who hope to form their own, separate Group.

Yet the EPP cannot easily build a right-wing majority in the Parliament. The parties to its right are fragmented and are mostly people with whom they would not wish to be associated.

The fascist right, despite gaining the two BNP seats in Britain, lost seats in France and Belgium, gained some in Hungary and Romania, but overall cannot form a political group (a key to influence in the European Parliament), which requires at least 25 MEPs from a quarter (7) of the Member States, unless the Northern League of Italy joins them, which I hear is unlikely. Even if then, it is likely that their strongest common feature - hatred of foreigners - will make it difficult for them to work together for very long.

The eurosceptic right did not fare well in the elections. UKIP's "Independence & Democracy" Group failed to win enough seats to constitute a Group, having lost ALL its seats in Poland, Denmark, Ireland and Sweden. Even in Britain, despite the gift of the Westminster expenses scandal, it gained only a single seat. As to Libertas, it failed dismally, with even Declan Ganley's millions failing to win him a seat.

The Conservatives are desparately trying to build their own group - but finding it difficult to do so without taking on board some frankly embarrassing partners. Their flight to the fringes is still viewed as madness by most Conservative MEPs - see for instance Caroline Jackson's comments to the BBC yesterday (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8096297.stm). It is unlikely that the EPP will see them as a partner, given that they have just walked out on their former colleagues, slamming the door.

Finally, the UEN (Union for a Europe of Nations) Group could well disappear. Its mainstays, Fianna Fail is set to join the Liberals and the former Italian AN has been absorbed into the EPP member in Italy. Their main leftover, the Polish PiS, is one of the Tories potential new partners - though their overt homophobia might yet prove too embarrassing for the latter.

All in all, those to the right of the EPP have enough numerically to constitute one or even two political Groups (given that the European Parliament has a lower threshold than most national parliaments for constituting Groups), but actually doing so requires the creation of alliances that are highly problematic - and even if they are successful, they will not be natural allies for the EPP.

Instead, the EPP will have to deal with parties of the centre and the centre-left. Even with the Liberals, they cannot obtain a majority. They will have to bargain with the Socialists and/or the Greens. The left cannot by itself get its way in this parliament, but nor can it be easily circumvented.

European Parliament wins big victories for consumers

It’s been a week of good news for consumers after this week's voting session in the European Parliament resulted in the adoption of new rules which will save millions of people money.

First, and most importantly, is the news that energy suppliers will no longer be able to charge a premium to people who pay for their gas and electricity on prepayment meters. Currently people who use their prepayment meter for both gas and electricity will pay on average an extra £215 a year more for their energy than people paying by direct debit. This is a patently unfair system, all the more unjust when you consider that you are a third more likely to buy your energy with a prepayment meter if you have a disability, live in social housing or are a single parent.

This practice will now end thanks to this week's vote in the European Parliament, a decision which will reduce bills for millions of people living in Britain who pay for their gas and electricity with a prepayment meter (there are 5.9million meters in the UK alone).

Along with the end to price discrimination, the new rules effectively give a bill of rights to energy consumers. Customers will be given the right to change their gas and electricity suppliers within three weeks and free of charge, be able to claim compensation in cases where people are given inaccurate or delayed bills. Finally, 80% of consumers across Europe must have access to energy-efficient SmartMeters for electrical appliances.

Mobile phone users will also save money after further caps were agreed this week for people using text messages and downloading data while abroad.

Back in the summer of 2007 a maximum tariff for people making or receiving phone calls abroad was introduced, and a ceiling price for data and text messages will come into force on July this year while receiving and making abroad will once again drop.

The cost of sending a text message while abroad will not be able to exceed 11 cents form 1st July this year while one megabyte of data (which is used to send emails and pictures and for web-browsing from mobile phones or laptops) will be limited to one euro (prices do not include VAT). By July 2011 this will drop to 50 cents.

In the past people have ended up with astronomical bills into tens of thousands of pounds (see here) by downloading programmes and games abroad because there was simply no warning or limit to how much they were spending. The new rules will give people the opportunity to impose a limit on how much they download abroad, a service people will have to opt out from by 2010.

Once again the European Parliament, thanks in part to the work of Labour MEPs, has stood up for the rights of consumers against big business, leaving ordinary people with more money in their pocket.

Declining turnout is not exclusive to the European Parliament

Much ado in the media these last few days about the likely level of turnout in the European elections, with the inevitible Eurosceptic claim that a low turnout lessens the legitimacy of the parliament.

I think it is important to distinguish two aspects: the level of turnout and the trend.

It is perfectly normal that European elections, like local elections, have a lower turnout than national elections. After all, less is at stake, as the EU's responsibilties are far smaller than those of national parliaments. That being said, European Parliament elections have a higher turnout than most mid-term Congress elections in the United States.

As regards the trend, the turnout has declined from 63% in 1979 to 46% in 2004 – a fall of about 17% in a quarter century (though accentuated by the accession of the eastern European countries, several of whom have an extraordinary low turnout in all elections). It is this decline that is siezed on by Eurosceptics.

However, this decline is not peculiar to the European Parliament. There has been a similar decline in national parliamentary elections in many countries over the corresponding period. For example, turnout declined by over 16% in Germany from 1972 to 2005, 27% in France between 1973 to 2007, 19% in Portugal from 1979 to 2005 and almost 20% in the UK between 1974 and 2005.

In other words it is a challenge for democracy at all levels, not a phenomenen particular to the European Parliament.

It's still fine to fish for your supper

Those who think that "Brussels bureaucrats" can impose barmy rules without further ado would do well to look at the story of anglers coming under the Common Fisheries Policy. In fact, it is proof that the EU's democratic process can and does stop the adoption of barmy rules.

In this case, amateur anglers were understandably taken aback when they heard or read that they were to be included under the Common Fisheries Policy. In fact, it was just a Commission proposal - a first draft.

The proposed regulation would have required recreational fishermen to register their boats, with their catch having to be counted against the fisheries quota for that country. This would have been, justifiably, a gift for those who claim that the EU imposes bonkers legislation and ignores common sense.

However, MEPs on the Fisheries Committee voted through amendments to leave this matter at the discretion of each country to decide, while the Commission has also seen reason - with Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg giving written assurances that recreational anglers now have absolutely nothing to worry about.

In his words: "The normal hobby angler who catches an insignificant number of fish when he goes out fishing and uses it exclusively for his private consumption will not be covered by the control regulation, even if he catches fish like cod which is under a recovery plan."

Even Tory MEP Struan Stevenson, a regular exaggerator of the story, said "anglers have nothing to fear".

That should settle it. The bottom line is that any angler who has the patience to go fishing to catch themselves their supper can rest easy. They'll still be able to do it.

Brown conquers the sceptics in Strasbourg

A busy Strasbourg session was given further excitement with Gordon Brown's arrival this afternoon. The Prime Minister took part in a debate in the Parliament on the preparation of the crucial G20 summit, before meeting with the Labour MEPs and then the Socialist group, and then travelling on to New York for further preparatory talks.

Gordon's passionate speech, which ranged from the need for regulatory reform and investment to deal with the financial crisis to tackling climate change and maintaining overseas development aid, was from the heart and certainly confounded those who claim that he is a eurosceptic - his final sentence called for a "united Europe founded on shared ideals", while he was at pains to stress that he was "proud to be British and proud to be European". Among Socialist colleagues, the consensus was that it was a great speech and he was given a rousing standing ovation from all national delegations in our group and beyond (even managing to get applause from Danny Cohn-Bendit, the leader of the Greens).

Eurosceptics were represented by some particularly wild contributions (even by their standards) from Nigel Farage and Dan Hannan. Farage argued that parliamentary democracy doesn't work, neither at Westminster nor in the European Parliament. A bizarre rant, which brought a knowing smile from Gordon!

Tories dump EPP in favour of isolation

The Tories' departure from the centre-right EPP has been brought a step closer today, with William Hague and Tim Kirkhope holding a meeting with Joseph Daul to officially serve notice of their intention to form a new group after the elections in June. The meeting will no doubt have been difficult for Tim, who has always been in favour of remaining within the EPP-ED.

However, the Tories are still no clearer about who will join them in this new right-wing group. Apart from some of the Czech ODS members, takers are a bit thin on the ground. Under the rule change which I piloted through the Parliament last summer, political groups must consist of at least 25 members from at least seven Member States. The number of Members is unlikely to be a problem, but finding MEPs from at least six other countries to join could still prove difficult.

Leaving the largest group in the European Parliament to sit in isolation (or with some pretty odd characters) is in any case throwing away power and influence.

Why do it? Because the EPP has some federalists! Yet, it also has many non-federalists, and anyway it is national governments and parliaments that decide on the degree of integration - the European Parliament decides on the content of EU legislation in areas that the EU is already responsible for. On most of this, the Conservatives and other centre-right parties agree.

So symbolism prevails over reality! Britain, which had a strong presence in the two main groups, will now have no presence in one of them (except for those - and I know of at least one - who will not follow Cameron's silly instruction).

At the other end of the Tory delegation, Roger Helmer has produced this poster featuring a semi-naked woman, and (for those who bother reading the poster) a series of outlandish claims about the cost of EU membership drawing on the inaccurate nonsense published by the Taxpayers’ Alliance this week.

Roger makes it clear that he will be using this material to campaign during the European elections, despite the fact that it clearly advocates British withdrawal from the EU – which is completely at odds with Tory party policy. If Helmer is going to campaign on this basis, there is barely a cigarette paper between his politics and UKIP's. It is a mystery why Helmer hasn't done the decent thing and defected. Or is the self-styled 'straight talker' frightened that if he followed his beliefs and defected, he'd be out of a job in June?

Academic Perspectives

The weekend is a good opportunity to escape from some of the glib, superficial coverage of the European Parliament in our press and to look at what the academic world is saying.

One piece that caught my eye was The Myth of Europe's 'Democratic Deficit' by Prof. Andrew Moravcsik of Princeton University, USA, which is a good antidote to some of the wilder claims by Eurosceptics. I don’t always agree with Andy, but his articles are always thought provoking and well worth a read.

I was also flattered to see that Professor Juliet Lodge of the Jean Monnet Centre names me in an article as one of five MEPs who 'have brought the European Parliament from being a mere talking shop to a legislature with genuine power'. Of course, there are many who have been involved in the long battle to make sure that no EU legislation can be adopted without parliamentary approval, thereby making the EU based not just on inter-governmental co-operation, but on parliamentary democracy. But in recent years, she says, five have stood out: 'The first three are the co-ordinators of the three largest political groups (and have led their Groups on these matters for a decade). They have thus negotiated on behalf of their Groups virtually all of the positions adopted by the Parliament on these issues over the last decade. They have at the same time taken on several other key roles, notably key rapporteurships. It is striking that two of the three are British - Andrew Duff and Richard Corbett.'

Maybe – but it is worth recalling that none of the treaty changes we have put forward could come into force without the approval of each and every national parliament.

A step closer to a ban on seal products

Yesterday MEPs on the Internal Market and Consumer Rights (IMCO) Committee agreed to a ban on the import of seal products deriving from commercial culls.

A majority of 25 MEPs to seven on IMCO voted to strengthen the Commission's proposal calling for an outright ban of products imported from commercial sealing.

Notwithstanding an attempt by Yorkshire & Humber Liberal Democrat MEP, Diana Wallis, who in a failed attempt tried to water down the proposal pushed for a mere labelling scheme, only seven MEPs voted against the report, siding instead with the Canadian hunting and sealing lobby.

This is a sensitive issue, which is close to the hearts of many constituents. It is vitally important for the EU to take a strong stance against this cruel practice and set a global precedent for the banning of seal products from the spring cull.

Indeed, with such a large majority in favour in committee, we can hope that support for the ban will be reinforced when it reaches the full parliament vote next month.

Thank you to all of you who have written to me on this matter and please be assured that I will continue to support a ban in the final vote in the Parliament.

Eurosceptics block reform so able to continue attacking EU

Sadly, the Written Declaration (the European Parliament's equivalent to an "Early Day Motion" in the House of Commons) calling on governments to allow the EP to hold all its sittings in Brussels, just failed to gather the target of 300 signatures that its authors had set themselves.

I was dismayed to discover many British MEPs had not bothered to sign the Declaration to reduce the time-wasting and costly junket to Strasbourg. Whilst British Labour MEPs supported the Declaration, the other UK political parties remained divided on the issue. A number of Tories, some Liberals and one of the two Greens failed to sign the Declaration. Most surprising of all, the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, refused to sign (despite emailing me personally to say "for once, I think you may be right") as did four of the other 11 MEPs elected as UKIP in 2004.

UKIP is always quick to accuse the EU of wasting taxpayer's money, but given the chance to press for an end to the costly monthly travel to the French city, Farage and nearly half of his following prefer to retain the junket! It would appear that UKIPs claims to oppose waste in the EU are empty. They would prefer to retain the two seats in order to continue accusing the EU of waste!

Less surprising is that the elusive Kilroy-Silk was one of those who failed to sign the WD. Kilroy's absence from the Parliament is legendary, so he is probably of the opinion that this won't affect him too much.

Although this WD is of course not legally binding, if it had been adopted by the Parliament it would have sent a clear message to the Member States (who have the power take this decision). It is high time national governments revise the 1992 decision (at the Edinburgh European Council chaired by John Major) obliging Parliament to shift twelve weeks of the year to Strasbourg.

Decision time for EP over Working Time

An enormous political and media storm has arisen on the issue of the Working Time Directive and whether the European Parliament will vote to phase out the right for individual workers (though often under pressure from employers) to opt out of the 48 hour maximum average working week.

Yet the position of the two sides is actually not that far apart. The Council of Ministers, with UK government support, wants a tighter definition of the 48 hour limit (averaged over three months), but allow individual workers to opt out, subject to stricter safeguards than there are at the moment. The European Parliament has a looser definition of the 48 hours (averaged over 12 months - which implies considerably more flexibility than three months, which will cater for the needs of most industries and services), but with the opt out gradually disappearing.

In other words, all concerned are searching for the right balance between protection and flexibility. If Parliament does indeed amend the Council's position, and Council then does not accept this, it should not be beyond the bounds of the possible to negotiate a compromise ahead of the third reading.

Let us not forget that this directive was introduced originally well over a decade ago (when a British Conservative government, at the time, abstained in the Council of Ministers rather than vote against it) in response to growing medical evidence that sustained and long term excessive working hours have considerable and negative health implications for the workers concerned. Not to mention the implications
for the rest of us if we are, for instance, operated on by a tired doctor or run over by a tired lorry driver. The Clapham Junction Railway Accident, in November 1989which killed 35 people and injured hundreds, is one of too many examples, where the investigation states the direct cause ‘was undoubtedly the wiring errors made’ by the electrician due to ‘the constant repetition of weekend work in addition to work throughout the week which has blunted his working edge, his freshness and his concentration.’ In the three months before the accident the electrician had had one day off over the entire period.

Opt outs are only possible at the moment where provided for under national legislation and with the explicit agreement of the worker concerned. Under the new proposals, there will be extra safeguards to prevent employers pressurising workers to opt out (Council of Ministers version) or the opt out will be ended in entirely, but balanced by having an annual average, thereby enabling much longer working weeks for up to half the year or more (Parliament's version).

Of course, there is a case to say that a young healthy person in a job that is not excessively physically demanding and that does not endanger the health of others should be able to choose to work longer if they genuinely wish to do so. The Council's position caters better for those cases. But there are also numerous and well documented cases of employees being pressurised to work such longer hours against their will (polling evidence shows that a majority of people working more than 48 hours would prefer not to do so). The European Parliament's position caters
better for protecting them. Surely it s possible to reconcile the two?

European Parliament votes to give fruit to all children

Yesterday the European Parliament voted to give millions of children across the EU access to free fresh fruit in school. This is the first time that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget has been used in such a way to directly benefit the public health needs of European citizens.

This new scheme will effectively extend across Europe the existing successful Free School Fruit programme created in 2000 by Britain's Labour government which has already benefitted thousands of children in England, and will also go a long way to helping in the creation of similar schemes in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Although I and my fellow Labour MEPs believe a larger budget for the scheme would be more helpful (it is currently set at €90million per year), this encouragement from the EU for governments to support the health and wellbeing of our children will help to tackle obesity, diabetes, and other serious illnesses, as well as providing immediate benefits for child health and shaping young people's views on nutrition.

Unsurprisingly however, the increasingly erratic and dysfunctional Eurosceptics in UKIP opposed this report's conclusions, and the very real health benefits they will bring to our children, on the basis that this scheme would make the EU look good! Maybe they should try thinking more about the needs of their constituents than opposing every good idea they come across for their own political indulgence.

The EU flag and anthem

EuroparlTV

The European Parliament has launched an online TV service to help make EU matters more accesible, particularly to younger people.

You can check the site out by clicking here

There is already a video about the problem of the European City Guide online. It's in the Your Voice section of the site.

Solving the Strasbourg seat dilemma

A couple of weeks ago I circulated a tongue-in-cheek suggestion by email to parliamentary colleagues; that the Parliament rename the building in which its parliamentary chamber in Brussels in located. Instead of calling it the "Paul Henri Spaak" building, it could, I proposed, be called "Strasbourg", and Parliament could then hold all its sessions in Strasbourg.

I was, however, somewhat surprised to hear from the BBC that the Scottish Nationalist Party has this week taken up this idea in a press release, claiming it as their own. Plagiarism is, of course, common in politics, but usually not on such a specific matter - although they always say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Joking aside, it is high time the national governments (whose power it is) revise their 1992 decision (at the Edinburgh Council chaired by John Major) obliging Parliament to shift twelve weeks a year to Strasbourg. The recent interruption of the monthly migration, due to the collapse of ceiling in the building that France built for us in Strasbourg, has been widely welcomed and shown how operating in Brussels is easier for all concerned, not just MEPs, but ministers, commissioners, journalists, staff, embassies and all.

Government confirms it wants a solution to Strasbourg

Many of you will have supported the One Seat campaign which seeks an end to Parliament sessions in Strasbourg.

Our Labour government, in response to a Downing Street petition, has essentially backed the campaign stating that having two seats for the parliament is "far from ideal" and that want to find "the most cost-effective solution for the conduct of business in the European Parliament".

This is good news but of course the decision on where the Parliament sits is made by all national governments and must be unanimous. There is still little sign that Sarkozy would be willing to end Strasbourg sessions. And there won’t be unless there is a concerted effort to pressure the French government into accepting a compromise. It is encouraging that our government has promised to continue to "press for progress". We should all press the Foreign Office and Number 10 to keep doing so at every opportunity.

Sarkozy must be careful to leave EU's options open

Nikolas Sarkozy's first speech in the European Parliament as President of the European Council was the closing highlight of the final Strasbourg session before the summer recess.

His speech was far more conciliatory than perhaps people had been expecting - especially in the light of his trenchant, and largely unjustified, criticisms of Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson. In particular, he attempted to re-assure those who fear that the French presidency will pursue a more protectionist agenda by saying that while Europeans had a right to expect "protection" from the EU this should not mean "protectionism". He also rejected the argument used by some French and German voices following the Irish referendum that a "multi-speed" Europe should be pursued, describing this scenario as "a last resort".

It was also interesting to hear him refer to the need for European politicians to take into account the specificity of sport when framing EU law, commenting that, just as the culture sector has some derogations from internal market rules, so exceptions should also apply in sports policy.

More controversially, he stated that there could be no further enlargement of the EU without the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, on the grounds that an enlarged EU required new institutions.

Of course, it is true that one of the reasons for reforming the treaties is the constant enlargement of the EU, and it is highly desirable to streamline the institutions to avoid sclerosis. But simply announcing that there can be no further enlargement - even to Croatia, which is nearly ready - is treading on dangerous political territory. It effectively holds potential accession countries, hostage pending the EU resolving its institutional future, or at the very least postpones their accession to the long term.

But it is the prospect of EU membership that has provided a massive incentive to the Balkan countries of the former Yugoslavia and to Turkey to reform their political and judicial structures. In many ways, enlargement is one of the biggest successes of the EU. Paddy Ashdown famously described it as "undoubtedly one of the EU's most effective means of exercising soft power" to secure stability and reform among its neighbours. To throw away the prospect of medium-term accession to the EU would remove the biggest carrot of all in Europe's soft-power armoury.

It could also be counter-productive in securing reform. Opponents of the Lisbon Treaty might well seize on this position to say that blocking Lisbon would therefore block Turkish accession, which would be popular in some quarters. Even though Turkish accession is years away and anyway requires a separate unanimous decision and national ratification, it would not stop a populist campaign along the lines of "stop Lisbon to stop Turkey".

So, Sarkozy's position is shooting himself in the foot - twice over.

Those of us who support both the reforms contained in the Lisbon Treaty and the enlargement of the EU need to be clear that blocking the latter to achieve the former is a highly dangerous tactic. It also slams the door on one potential way out if Lisbon remains blocked, namely incorporating some of the institutional reforms into a country's accession treaty (which anyway has to address issues like the new country's votes in the council and seats in the European Parliament).

Closing down your options is not the right thing to do at the present time.

New rules on groups, same old story from Hannan

My proposal to raise the threshold for forming political groups in the European Parliament from 20 to 25 MEPs was today adopted by a comfortable majority in Strasbourg.

This matters. Once a political group is formed they are provided with extra resources, in terms of finance and staff for their political campaigns. The current threshold of 20 MEPs amounts to just 2.5% of the European Parliament and is therefore considerably lower than what most national parliaments require. Very small, and possibly extremist groups can help themselves to taxpayers money for their political campaigns.

While the figure adopted today (25) is still below the average for national parliaments, it is a compromise that was supported by most of the smaller groups.

Modest reforms you might think, but I have been accused of being anti-democratic and of attempting to wipe out Euroscepticism in the European Parliament!

One of my accusers is Dan Hannan, who despite being an articulate and witty writer, consistently fills his Telegraph blog with untruths to back up his conspiracy theory that the European Parliament is seeking to become a dictatorial one-party parliament intent on destroying Eurosceptics. The headline in his blog today, “European Parliament bars Euro-sceptic groups”, is a prime example. This is patently untrue!

There have always been far more than 25 Eurosceptics in the European parliament and there have always been Eurosceptic groups. Euroscepticism is an important segment of public opinion which, especially in a proportional representation electoral system, is well represented in Parliament.

Any grouping of 25 MEPs elected at the next European elections, representing seven member states, will be able to form a political group. What’s more the new rules will actually benefit them if they are close to the threshold, because they allow an existing group to continue for up to two years if it slips just below the threshold! This of course isn’t mentioned in Hannan's blog because it doesn’t fit in with his conspiracy theory.

He also suggests that the adoption of my proposals broke European Parliament rules. Again this is not true. The report was adopted at Committee level and amended when it went before the whole house, a perfectly normal and regular occurance.

The amendment adopted by the House was a compromise (between the status quo and a proposal for 30) which was supported by small and large groups alike (the Greens, Left, Union for Europe of Nations, Socialist, Christian Democrat) and some of Hannan's fellow Conservatives. Even UKIP's Group wanted to raise the threshold (to 22) - if raising the threshold was a plot against Eurosceptics, as Hannan claims, then why did the most Eurosceptic Group in the Parliament support such an idea?

Increasingly every rule change in the European Parliament is being deliberately portrayed by Hannan and his friends as an attack on Eurosceptics but as the events of today show this is ultimately a paranoid and flawed theory.

The European Parliament's debate on Ireland's No

Interesting debate today in the European Parliament on the fallout of the Irish referendum, punctuated by UKIP and three of the Tories coming in wearing T-shirts urging "respect for the Irish votes" - prompting one Irish MEP to comment that history would have been quite different if right-wing British politicians had started to do that a century or more ago!

The problem we face, of course, is how to respect the divergent results of different member states - both the No from Ireland and the Yes from other member states.

Some want to listen just to one side. I want to listen to both. We must then rise to the challenge of bridging the gap.

If there are by the autumn 25 or 26 ratifications, it would not be unreasonable nor undemocratic to ask the minority to consider the possibility to seek a compromise rather than to block reforms entirely.

Indeed, that was the professed view of No campaigners in Ireland, who said they want a better deal.

Yet, the UKIP/Tory/Sinn Fein/French Communist view (what an alliance! watching the acting leader of the Tories vigorously applaud the French Communist leader was instructive) expressed in the debate was that other countries shouldn't be allowed to vote on the treaty at all (presumably in case they Vote Yes).

For good measure, Nigel Farage threw into the debate a claim that a Commissioner had committed fraud - a remark somewhat undermined when the very next speaker was UKIP's shame, Ashley Mote, recently released from prison after serving a sentance for...fraud!

Several Irish members were understandably bitter at the the claims by some No campaigners that the Lisbon Treaty would have legalised euthanasia, drug-taking and abortion in Ireland, and also required higher corporation tax rates and an Irish contribution to a European army. These lies had an impact on enough voters to swing the result.

But blame was also laid at the door of the Irish government for not campaigning or explaining properly or even bothering to rebut the No claims until the last few days, preoccupied as they were with installing a new Prime Minister and re-shuffling the government.

Be that as it may, we now have to face up to the consequences rather than apportion the blame. It will be no easy task, but the need to reform the EU has not gone away and achieving this remains on the agenda.

If you want to read more on the referendum I recommend Will Hutton's excellent piece for the Observer which addresses the issue of lies and misinformation used by some of the No campaingers.

The true reasons behind the proposed new rules on Groups

It was not a surprise to see the Telegraph print this story on my proposal to raise the threshold needed to form a political group in the European Parliament, nor dress it up as a sinister plot to “eliminate Eurosceptics”.

My proposal, which was discussed in the Constitutional Affairs Committee yesterday, was a response to concerns that, currently, just 20 MEPs (only 2 1/2% of members in the European Parliament), drawn from a fifth of the member states, can form a political "Group" and obtain significant extra resources such as staff and money.

My proposal is to raise the number of MEPs needed to form a group to 30 (4%), with a quarter of member states represented - still lower than the percentage required to form a Group in most national parliaments.

The Telegraph and some blogs have swallowed Nigel Farage's line that this is is a direct attack on UKIP as there are currently just 23 members in their Independence & Democracy Group. But my proposal, if adopted, would not come into effect until the next parliament. By then, UKIP and its allies will surely either have more seats (their view) reaching the new threshold, or fewer (my view) meaning they won't even qualify under the current rule. In any case, MEPs who do not sit in a Group are guaranteed all the normal parliamentary privileges and cannot be silenced.

Farage flatters himself that he and the pipsqueek remanents of UKIP are my target. No, the true purpose of the rule change is to diminish the chances of creating - and giving taxpayers money to - a neo-nazi style far-right Group. Already last year, we saw the debacle of the Independence Sovereignty & Tradition Group, when the far-right managed to cobble together 20 MEPs from a mixture of fascists, holocaust deniers and xenophobes (including Ashley Mote, elected as UKIP) to become eligible for a million euros of funding in 2007. The ramshackle nature of the group was exposed when they collapsed this year after several Romanian MEPs left it following deogatgory comments about Romanians from their colleague Alessandra Mussolini.

Maybe Nigel Farage supports giving money to neo-nazis, but I don't. Certainly, dressing up my proposal as an attempt by the two big Groups to squash the small ones is nonsense.

On the contrary, my proposals actually include a provision that would help small Groups. Previously, smaller groups could often be held hostage by a few MEPs or even individuals who know if they leave the group it would collapse. It was the former leader of UKIP's Group, Jens Peter Bonde, who drew my attention to this problem. I have attempted to address it in the way he suggested, by proposing that if an existing Group loses members and falls below the threshold of 30, they can continue to exist for two years. This would actually help smaller groups work better and give them more stability, as they would not have the fear of collapse continually dangled over them.

Tories and Lib Dems follow our lead

Interesting to see the Conservatives and the Lib Dems have finally followed Labour’s lead and demanded that their MEPs produce receipts for all their office expenses.

Labour MEPs have had to provide receipts for their expenses and have their accounts approved by an independent auditor for nearly a decade. It’s a simple enough measure but I’m stunned its taken the Tories and Lib Dems this long. Hopefully more parties across in the European Parliament will now demand the same standards.

The party which have been under the most scrutiny for their MEPs expenses, UKIP, have not. Should we really be surprised?

Encouraging news in the battle against directory scams

Some good bits of news about the battle against the European City Guide and its various dubious guises.

The European Commissioner for consumer protection, Meglena Kuneva, has written to me stating that should the number of complaints against directory scams not decline then she will step-up her investigation into possible actions the Commission can take. So, any people who have been victims of the directory scams, anywhere in Europe, should make the effort to register their complaints to the Commission (as well as any national authorities) so the extent of the problem is made clear. Letters should be addressed to Commissioner Kuneva, European Commission, Rue de la Loi 200, B-1049 Brussels.

My Labour colleague Arlene McCarthy, who chairs Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, has also joined the campaign and is asking to extend consumer protection law to business-to-business transactions, something which would help protect victims of the scams.

I have also heard today that the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee has now started on its report into directory scams and, beacause of the delays, they are keen to press on quickly with their investigation, with a meeting with victims and campaigners against the scams set for May. Simon Busutil MEP is still the rapporteur and evidence against directory scams and any suggestions for action should also be sent to him at the European Parliament, Brussels.

Realistically the problem of directory scams is not likely to be solved soon but there is now at least a consensus building that the scams are a blight on small businesses across Europe and it is an issue that the EU can help deal with

The Record Europe and parliamentry scrutiny

I'm on this week's edition of the BBC's Record Europe with the Chair of the Commons EU Scrutiny commitee, Michael Connarty MP and a Danish MEP, Dan Jorgensen. We were discussing how to improve national parliamentry scrutiny of EU legislation.

You can watch the whole programme on this subject (we come in at the end) online by clicking here of if you have digital it will be on the BBC Parliament channel once a day all this week.

Jens Peter Bonde to retire

The veteran Eurosceptic MEP, Jens Peter Bonde, who leads the “Independence and Democracy” Political Group in the European Parliament, of which UKIP is the largest component, has announced his forthcoming retirement.

One of only five MEPs to have served continuously since the first European elections in 1979, he is a well known figure in the Parliament, and for more than half his period has served on the internal management body of the Parliament. He has been the most prominent euroesceptic across Europe for many years, is hugely energetic and is a prolific writer.

His euroscepticism is now very different from the nihilistic vision of UKIP. Granted, when he was first elected, he too wanted to destroy the EU or at least see Denmark leave it. But as he wrote himself in last week’s Parliament magazine:

“At first I worked to withdraw from the EU and, since 1992, have worked mainly to reform the European institutions with transparency, proximity and democracy.”

Indeed, he often said that he could make common cause with federalists on these issues. He was certainly not averse to consulting me on his publications, some of which focussed more on facts and documentation, in the cause of transparency, than on political point-scoring.

Clearly, as he got to know the EU better, he realised that his initial hostility was misplaced and he evolved to join the ranks of reformers rather than destroyers. His retirement press release refers to his desire “to focus on building a better European Union”. A lesson UKIP has yet to learn! Indeed, I know that Bonde was increasingly uneasy about the UKIP members of his Group, both in terms of their extremist positions and about their recent tactic of trying to disrupt the Parliament.

Bonde’s problem was that he was a prisoner of his own supporters. To keep his position, he needed to play up his scepticism and exaggerate the defects of the Union. His attempts to lead his movement in Denmark to a more realistic position led to it splitting in the early 1990s, but there was only so far he could go without being disowned by the more extreme elements. Similarly, in Parliament, he was a prisoner of the more extreme elements of his Group, including UKIP.

I wish him well apon his retirement.

Unruly MEPs deserve their fines

Parliament's President (Speaker) has this week fined the MEPs who took part in the attempt to drown out the Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates in December.

Yorkshire’s very own Godfrey Bloom is in the hall of shame, though he may well not realise this yet as he wasn’t present for the parliament sitting when Hans Gert Pottering explained the reasons behind the punishments.

That’s a pity because Pottering’s explanation of exactly why Bloom and some others were punished made it quite clear that it was not their views that were the problem (as they claim) - they were in trouble for stopping others (notably the Portuguese Prime Minister) – from expressing their views with their hollering and howling.

Of course Dan Hannan has failed to note this in his demagogic Telegraph blog, as his crusade to convince the world that the European Parliament is "despotic" continues. He points out that other protests have been allowed to go on in the parliament, which is quite true but they made no attempt to disrupt parliamentary proceedings and prevent those with a different view from speaking. Similarly, in this protest, MEPs who merely waved banners have not been reprimanded (Hannan was one). The fines were imposed on those who aggressed ushers or who continued to disrupt the proceedings after being called to order by the Speaker.

Hannan well knows that the sort of behaviour he readily condones would have ended in far more rigourous disciplinary proceedings and suspension had it taken place in the Commons, but the guilty MEPs escape such punishment. Their rights to speak in debates and to vote remain intact and they have simply been fined.

Plenty of MPs have had their right to vote and speak suspended for far less in the Commons. There are myriad examples, a fair number involving Denis Skinner, who has been suspended for simply complaining that Deputy Speaker Sir Alan Haselhurst was being lenient to Theresa May because she was a Conservative. Another MP who was recently suspended was of course Lib Dem frontbencher Ed Davey, who earned a short ban after making excessive points of order during the treaty debate. Despite the frequency of these suspensions I have yet to see Hannan rally against "the despotism of the Commons."

The point is, that all parliaments have rules of procedure and when these rules are broken the people responsible face punishment and in this case, vociferously booing and heckling a speaker on the floor of the parliament, and continuing to do so when called to order by the Speaker, is clearly un-parliamentary behaviour.

You can read Pottering's explanation of the punishments in full here.

Revealed, the way the Tories voted on the treaty

Which way individual Tory MEPs voted on yesterday’s vote on the Lisbon Treaty makes interesting reading.

The vast majority voted against the treaty, in accordance with the Cameron/Hague line. They were, as I said yesterday, the only major party in the whole of the EU to do so.

But nearly a quarter did not follow their party dictat. Christopher Beazley voted in favour as did Tory new boy Sajid Karim, who having defected last year from the Lib Dems, has obviously failed to make many of his new colleagues see sense.

Five more avoided voting. Caroline Jackson might have been simply trying to avoid her colleagues after fiercely attacking them in the Financial Times.

But what of Syed Kamall, who has spent the past few sessions tediously squeezing in references to having a referendum in almost every speech he has made, regardless of the subject being debated, but on Wednesday, when he had a chance to vote on the treaty, he didn’t? Christopher Heaton-Harris and James Elles were also notable by their absence, though the former, at least, is an unlikely closet federalist.

As to Edward McMillan Scott, he can sometimes be very sensible, so not voting against was surely deliberate. And I won't reveal the names of those who apologised to me for not voting for my report on the treaty, citing unbearable pressure from on-high.

Lisbon Treaty overwhelmingly adopted by European Parliament

My report on the Lisbon Treaty, which I co-authored with Íñigo Méndez de Vigo MEP, pleasingly sailed through the European Parliament today, with 525 votes in favour and just 115 against.

Every single party that is in government in the EU’s member states and almost every single one of the principal opposition parties in every member state – except the British Conservatives - showed their support for the treaty in today’s vote.

All the main Christian Democrat parties, all the Socialist parties and the Liberal parties in each of the 27 member states supported the treaty. The same is true for the majority of the Green parties and even Conservative parties, except, of course, the Tories.

Opposition to the treaty came mainly from the far-right and some on the extreme left of the political spectrum. It was, though, curious to see a new political alliance being forged between Sinn Féin and the British Conservatives in opposing this treaty!

Bizarely, some opponents of the treaty argued that it was being adopted without them having access to the consolidated treaties (i.e. the treaties as they will be after being amended by the Lisbon Treaty) and the poor souls find it too hard work to cross reference the amendments. But in any case, consolidated treaties have been published by several member states. Frankly, any Member of the European Parliament who says he or she has not been able to study the texts is not doing the job which they are paid to do. It is pure laziness.

There were also some strange calls for the European Parliament to demand referendums in each member state to ratify the treaty. I find it quite amusing that those who oppose the European Union now want the European Parliament to tell sovereign member states what their internal procedures should be to ratify an international treaty. That is hypocrisy in the extreme!

Finally, I suppose I couldn’t blog on today’s events without mentioning UKIP’s chicken stunt. There were rumours every UKIP MEP was going to dress as a chicken during today’s vote but sadly the sight of Godfrey Bloom in a chicken suit was not to be and in the end they settled on wearing yellow t-shirts with a chicken print. At least they didn't try to disrupt the Parliament this time, but they didn't half look silly!

However, they spent so long parading outside the chamber for the benefit of the press that it became clear to everyone that what they were really "chicken" about, was taking part in the debate - presumably because they can't stand hearing views they disagree with. They simply dislike democratic parliamentary debate.

For my speech opening the debate click here and for my speech winding it up click here.

Hannan's calculated attack just an embarrassing stunt

There were controversial scenes in Parliament today as Conservative MEP, and Telegraph columnist, Dan Hannan stood up and compared his fellow EPP colleague, the Speaker of the Parliament, Hans Gert Pottering, to Hitler. Joseph Daul, the EPP leader, responded by telling the Parliament that he would propose to expel Hannan from the EPP.

This was a calculated attack by Hannan who will probably have already penned his Telegraph column which will accuse the Parliament of gagging him, and acting to ban any opposition to the EU.

Of course the reality is that anyone who stood up in any parliament would face opprobrium if they compared the Speaker to Hitler. Indeed, it was merely a petty stunt to support his claim that the European Parliament will not tolerate minority views.

This is simply not true. The European Parliament has a very wide range of political views and speaking time in debates is shared out proportionately among all the political groups - so all views are heard in the debates.

The incident which provoked his carefully choreographed outburst was a vote on an interpretation (by the relevant committee) of the rules of procedure of Parliament. The rules have not been changed, but it was confirmed that they already allow the President of Parliament to call an end to excessive use of points of order, procedural motions, etc where they are "manifestly intended to cause, and will result in, a prolonged and serious obstruction of the business of the House ."

This is a reserve power that has only once been used - by President Pat Cox some five years ago - but is there to protect Parliament, if necessary, from attempts to bring it to a complete halt. The President of the European Parliament anyway has far less drastic powers than the Speaker of the House of Commons

If Hannan and co are upset about that, it is probably because they are indeed intending to bring democratic debate to a halt, possibly next month when Parliament debates and votes on the Reform Treaty, which they oppose.

The interesting question now is whether Hannan will be disowned by his Tory colleagues in the EP (who, at committee stage, supported this interpretation of the Rule). It is certainly an embarrassment for the Conservative Party and it will be intriguing to see what David Cameron has to say about it. Probably nothing!

Tories and UKIPs in cahoots once again

A month after bringing the tactics of football hooliganism to the European Parliament, four or five Tory Eurosceptics and UKIP have again worked in cahoots to undermine the work of the European Parliament.

They hit on two tactics. The first was to demand a full roll call votes (instead of a show of hands) on every paragraph and every amendment before the house. (Imagine that the House of Commons had a division on every paragraph of a bill). This slows down voting and costs £300 per vote (but they don't really care about taxpayers money).

The second was to use the procedure of "Explanation of Votes" which allows Members to speak after a vote, even if they have already spoken in the preceding debate, to explain why they voted in a particular way, for instance if they change their mind following the debate. Usually, only a few members avail themselves of this possibilty, and often do so in writing, which is also allowed. But yesterday, every UKIP member and several Tories asked to explain their vote verbally on every item on the agenda, whether or not they had already spoken in the debate. This would have held up the next scheduled debates for several hours, so the President proposed to take these explanations after those debates. This was agreed by the House, but UKIP and Dan Hannan protested that they were being "censored", that minority views were being crushed and that they had an absolute right to delay proceedings if they chose to do so.

Let one thing be clear, this is not about their freedom of expression. The European Parliament has a very wide range of poitical views and speaking time in debates is shared out proportionately among all the political groups - so all views will have been heard in the debates.

Most MEPs take their role as elected representatives seriously, working to deliver legislation and policy outcomes for their voters. In contrast, some Tories and UKIP are apparently only interested in disrupting the work of the elected Parliament either through behaving like football hooligans or procedural jiggery-pokery. The sheer contempt they show to democracy is breathtaking.

Facetious Farage ignores the facts

I laughed when I saw that Nigel Farage had put out a press release complaining that there was insufficient television coverage of his attempt to disrupt the ceremony signing the Charter of Fundamental Rights last week in Strasbourg. He considers this to be an act of censorship - though from what I saw of the written media, his little protest got ample coverage, even on some front pages. In terms of censorship, let us not forget, it was he himself and his allies (including Mr Le Pen's Front National, various right-wing Polish parties and several British Conservatives) who were trying to shout down the Portuguese Prime Minister so that he couldn't be heard and to disrupt parliamentary proceedings - behaviour that in any national Parliament would have led to their suspension.

In a similar vein, it was strange to see that Bill Cash has complained of "the deliberate playing down of these arguments in the media" - referring to Eurosceptic arguments in the British media! Does the man live on another planet?

A new low

The Parliament plenary session was marred today by some disgraceful scenes during the signing of the Charter of Fundamental Rights by the Presidents of the Commission, Council and Parliament with a handful of (sadly, British led) MEPs behaving like hooligans.

Led by (needless to say) UKIP (clad in black shirts with banners calling for a referendum on the Reform Treaty) and joined by the Tory hard-right including Dan Hannan, Roger Helmer, Martin Callanan and Nirj Deva, this group shouted down and booed the Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates and President Barroso as they tried to deliver speeches on the importance of respecting basic human rights. In any national parliament (not least the House of Commons) such behaviour would have resulted in instant expulsion from the Chamber and suspension.

Such behaviour was both a disgraceful way to treat a visitor to the Parliament and also deeply embarrassing to myself as a British MEP to see the image of Brits abroad tarnished by a group of malcontents acting like football hooligans.

Vice-President of Parliament and fellow Yorkshire MEP Diana Wallis injected some welcome rationality to proceedings poining out that the Parliament had, the previous month, endorsed the Charter by over 500 votes to 84. The Charter sets out a range of civil, political, economic and social rights which, largely speaking, already exist at national level, but will, if the Reform Treaty is ratified, be binding on the EU institutions when formulating European legislation.

It is perhaps unsurprising that UKIP, who frequently resort to such bully-boy tactics when the democratic will goes against them, but shameful that MEPs from a supposedly serious party like the Conservatives would act in such a contemptible way.

Rapporteur for the new treaty

I was delighted to be appointed yesterday to draw up the European Parliament's report on the Reform Treaty (Treaty of Lisbon) together with my colleague, Inigo Mendez de Vigo. We are the co-ordinators of the two main political groups (the Socialists in my case and the Conservative+Christian Democrat EPP Group in his) showing the widespread support the Treaty enjoys from both sides of the House (apart from many of the British Conservatives).

Of course, we will just make the first draft - the parliamentary committee and then Parliament as a whole will vote on and can amend our draft. But the first discussion in committee last night showed broad support for an approach that focusses on comparing the new treaty to the current treaties (and noting the improvements) rather than on comparing it to the abandoned Constitutional Treaty (and moaning about the changes). A few Members did argue that we should focus on the latter, deploring the loss of the Constitution, but they were a minority.

It is an honour that my parliamentary colleagues have chosen me for this high-profile report. I hope that a clear, factual report will shed light on the new treaty and show why national parliaments should also approve it.

ITS all over

I was cheered by the news that the European Parliament's smallest but most poisonous and extremist political groups looks set to fold. The Greater Romania party has announced that it will leave the Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty (ITS) group after one of its members Italian MEP Alessandra Mussolini (the granddaughter of the Italian dictator) told a Romanian newspaper that - "breaking the law became a way of life for Romanians".

Under the Parliamentary rulebook, the minimum number of MEPs required to form a political group is 20 and they must include representatives from at least one fifth of the Member States. Political groups receive research budgets and administrative support and are better able to secure influential positions on parliamentary committees and the bureau of the Parliament than non-attached MEPs. If the five MEPs for the Greater Romania Party leave the ITS, the group will be reduced to 18 members and will cease to exist.

The demise of the ITS group is no loss to the Parliament. On the contrary, the ITS group is a rag-bag of assorted xenophobes, holocaust deniers and fascists, with its luminaries including Jean Marie Le Pen, Jörg Haider's Austrian Free Democrats and Ms Mussolini.

As a side-note, the ITS group includes former UKIP MEP Ashley Mote who is currently serving a nine month prison sentence for multiple benefit fraud offences. I wonder whether UKIP will welcome him back!

At last, the deal has been done and a new treaty reforming the EU has been agreed by all 27 national governments!

Amid all the fuss about what the treaty does and doesn't do, it is perhaps worth noting that it will improve the democratic accountability of the European Union. Under the terms of the treaty, no EU legislation can be adopted without, first,examination by national parliaments, second, approval by the EU Council of Ministers (composed of national ministers from national governments accountable to those national parliaments) and third, approval of the European Parliament (composed of our directly elected MEPs). This is a level of scrutiny that exists in no other international organisation. Anyone genuinely worried about accountability should focus on NATO, the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank, the OECD and so on, which lack such accountability.

Today my parliamentary committee held a public hearing on lobbying in the European Union. Brussels is, apparently, home to as many lobbyists as Washington DC - and we all know that in the latter, 22 Congressmen and staffers are currently in jail having been convicted or indicted on corruption charges related to the activities of lobbyists.

Fortunately, we do not have the American political system whereby election campaigns of Congressmen and Senators require vast amounts of money to pay for individualised advertisements on television. In most European countries, like Britain, there is guaranteed fair and free access for political parties to television coverage, ceilings on expenditure during election campaigns, and the bulk of campaigning activity is organised and paid for by parties rather than the individual MPs. Furthermore, we have permanent civil servants - and do not have whole departments whose staff change in function of the election results with a keen vested interests in helping the campaign of one side or another.

In most European countries, and in the European Union, lobbyists do not exercise influence by making campaign contributions in the American way but have to rely more on force of persuasion and argument. Fortunately, on any given issue, there are a variety of lobbyists: producers and consumers, employers and trade unionists, NGOs of all kinds from environmental campaigners to consumer protection activists. It is the job of the MEP to listen to the various points of view and then to exercise judgement, remembering that as elected representatives they are accountable to the electorate as a whole, not a particular sector or interest.

The European Parliament actually has stricter rules than many national parliaments as regards the access of lobbyists to the Parliament. Lobbyists must register with the Parliament, wear a special badge and accept to comply with a code of conduct, failing which their pass will be removed. MEPs are prohibited from accepting gifts and they must declare and register any material support in terms of staff or finance granted to them in connection with their political activities.

Discussions are now underway to see whether the Commission and the Parliament should have a common set of rules on these matters and whether they can oblige all lobbyists to declare and publish their own financial sources and list of people they have contacted. If adopted, such proposals would place the European institutions well ahead of the average in terms of transparency and regulation of interest groups and lobbyists. Parliament's rapporteur on this is the Finnish Conservative Alexander Stubb MEP who is a refreshing contrast to the British Conservatives.

Yesterday we voted in Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs on a proposal for the composition of the European Parliament after the next European elections.

Although this would appear to be an issue guaranteed to set Member States in conflict with each other, in fact a very large consensus (70%) rallied behind the proposal drafted by the Committee. This is because, once you take account of the constraints laid down by the treaty (minimum of six per country, maximum of 96 and the principle of "degressive proportionality" whereby the bigger a country's population the more seats it has but tapering so that MEPs from larger Member States represent more electors than those from smaller Member States), there's little practical leeway and the solution is pretty obvious. It focuses on correcting the main anomalies that have occurred over the years due to demographic change (and the bargaining of Mr Aznar at Nice in 2000 when he secured in the Nice Treaty extra votes for Spain in the Council at the expense of seats in the European Parliament. As the former will be changed by the new Reform Treaty, the latter requires correction as well.)

Of course, MEPs from some countries "tried it on". Some Irish said that their population is due to rise faster over the next decade and that this should be anticipated already. Some Italians argued that the number of citizens not residents should be counted for their population so that they can count the 3-4million Italian citizens resident in Argentina. The Poles made much of the fact that 3million Poles live in other EU countries - but they are, of course, allowed to vote in those countries in European elections.

But it was the British Conservatives that had the most bizarre position, having proclaimed loudly (and written letters to the other parties) to say Britain was underrepresented compared to smaller countries. Yet the only amendment they tabled was to give Italy an extra seat at the expense of France! Not a single Conservative MEP attended the meeting to explain their rationale so it will remain a mystery for now.

I spoke in Monday's parliamentary debate on the natural disasters that blighted parts of Europe this summer.

Inevitably, the debate tended to focus on the more recent fires in Greece which have left scores dead and large swathes of the country torched - their worst since 1857, apparently - but I was able to ensure that the floods in Yorkshire and other parts of Britain were not neglected.

They are mentioned in the Parliament's resolution too, endorsing the case for EU solidarity aid. Britain has now formally requested such aid, and the general consensus in debate was that the Commission must release the money rapidly.

Back at work in the European Parliament

A paper published by the European Commission a couple of weeks ago set out ideas that could make it easier for European political parties to increase their profile.

Despite the fact that, in the European Parliament, Labour members sit in the Party of European Socialists, the Tories (for the moment at least) in the European People's Party and the Liberal Democrats in the Alliance of Liberal Democrat and Reform Parties, when it comes to European election campaigns, their respective parties do little more than co-ordinate national campaigns. European elections tend to be fought as 27 different national campaigns dominated by the state of domestic politics.

This is slightly anomalous. Broadly speaking, the European Parliament gives the EU ideological/political pluralism, while national interests represented by national governments in the Council of Ministers. Most European issues are in fact political rather than national choices, such as whether you want higher environmental standards, but at greater costs, or not. There are people on both sides of the argument in every country. They are represented in the Parliament, but not reflected in the Council where each country is represented only by the government party.

The new rules would allow and indeed help Europe-wide parties to campaign and also to establish political foundations to encourage debates and political research.

One of the provisions of the proposed Reform Treaty is the election of the Commission president by the European Parliament. This has given rise to calls from some quarters that the European parties should nominate their own candidates for President. This would add to the profile of the elections and the European parties, as well as provide a more visible link between the election results and the choice of Europe's chief executive.

Many feel that this could be used as a tool to increase political participation and voter turn-out as well as generate a better understanding of the working of the EU.

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?

Like many national parliaments, the European Parliament has rules that members may not vote on matters where they have a pecuniary personal interest. This is intended to stop, for instance, members who hold shares in a company that might be affected by a decision from benefitting from the way they vote.

In yesterday’s vote on capping mobile phone charges, two of the Eurosceptic Tory MEPs got up to say that they would not be voting because they stood to gain financially if phone charges went down, because they owned mobile phones. Following their logic, I suggested that the President find out if there was any member who did not possess a mobile phone and that member alone might decide on this particular piece of legislation!

Obviously, MEPs benefit from any consumer protection measure that protects the general public, since they are themselves also members of the general public. The attempt to make it impossible for any member possessing a mobile phone to vote on this measure was in fact no less than an attempt to sabotage it – though an amusing one!

Slowly but surely, pressure is growing on the European City Guide and the suspiciously similar array of other directory frauds, that use misleading forms to con people into signing up to a virtually worthless website or magazines for a fee of around 1000 euros a year, with scant opportunity to cancel the contract.

The number of complaints made to the European Parliament’s Petition’s Committee about the ECG last week resulted in a discussion about how best to combat the companies that send out these endless series of forms.

Jules Woodell, who runs the stopECG website, blog and support group, was invited to the meeting and explained how the companies worked. He made abundantly clear the trouble the ECG poses for small businesses and the bullying victims face if they refuse to pay.

I took the opportunity to make proposals to take matter further with the committee agreeing to draft a report that will look into ways and means of dealing with directory scams: whether a change in legislation is needed, how to co-ordinate national measures, mutual information on prosecutions and the results of court cases.

There is still a lot of work to do, particularly because the ECG is so quick at adapting to and bending regulations, but finally there is a real possibility that the EU can outlaw these scams or at least regulate them to the point where people can not be fooled.

Read Jules's account of his trip to Brussels by clicking here.

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.

I see that relations between the pro and anti-European wings of the Tory party have deteriorated to the extent that one side wishes to airbrush the other out of history.

Media coverage of the election of Neil Parrish MEP as Chairman of the European Parliament's Agriculture Committee has been accompanied by the comment that this is "the first time that this important Chair has gone to a UK member" (comments by a Conservative MEP in the Western Mail, 27th February).

Yet this very same post was previously held by Sir Henry Plumb MEP (later Lord Plumb), former President of the National Farmers Union and David Curry MEP, later to become a UK Minister for Agriculture. These two were, of course, strongly pro-European. It seems that some of the new generation of Conservative MEPs would prefer that they had never existed.

This was a special week in the European Parliament, as we had to elect or re-elect the President, Vice-Presidents and so on, ending (still to come) with chairs of all the parliamentary committees. This happens every two and a half years, neatly splitting the five year term of the Parliament in two halves.

Most positions, including Vice Presidents of Parliament and Committee chairs, are in practice settled in advance of the election by a gentleman's agreement among the different political groups to distribute these positions proportionally among them, according to the size of each Group. This reflects the tradition in a number of national parliaments, but differs from, say, the US Congress where the majority takes all such positions.

The creation of an extreme right Group in the Parliament (just reaching the minimum number required of 12 thanks to Ashley Mote, elected in Britain as UKIP) poses a problem for democratic parties: should the new Group be given their proportional share (which amounts to a couple of deputy Chairs of committees), raising the prospect of, say, Jean Marie Le Pen or Alessandra Mussolini becoming an official office holder of the Parliament? Most of the democratic Groups appear at this stage to agree that they shouldn't.

This would be perfectly within the rules, as such positions are elected and the gentlemen's agreement to support each others' candidates can perfectly well be an agreement among just some Groups (or among all but one). In any case, you cannot require individual MEPs to vote for a fascist (or indeed anyone) as chair of their committee if they don't want to.

The Daily Express in Scotland today leads with a grumble about the cost of interpreters in the European Parliament.

Now, I don’t expect much from the Express, and certainly not anything even vaguely pro-European, but this particular article was one of those that leaves you shaking your head.

They suggest the Parliament should abandon all but four or five languages to save tax-payers money. Good grief, imagine the headlines if the Parliament did suggest jettisoning a few languages, especially English.

The Express would be up in arms. You wouldn’t be able to nip into your local newsagents for all the blazing headlines about “Evil EU outlaws English”, “Unelected totalitarian bureaucrats annihilate our beautiful language” and “Diana death linked to EU’s ban on English”.

Many MEPs are capable of speaking English, French, Spanish or German but this is simply not the point. The European Parliament is democratic and as such, citizens should be able to vote for people who reflect their views, irrespective of the linguistic abilities of the candidates. They should also be able to follow the debates, if they so wish, in a language they understand. It may be a (relatively)costly procedure but the interpreters are indispensable for communication and democracy.

Right-wing papers like the Express often (wrongly) accuse the EU of being undemocratic and elitist. If speaking a foreign language to a level of making public speeches and conducting legal arguments in that language were to be a prerequisite of becoming an MEP then Parliament would become exactly what these papers rally against.

After months of negotiating on behalf of Parliament with the Council of Ministers I, along with French MEP Joseph Daul, have managed to win an important victory for the European Parliament by agreeing on a reform of the comitology system. You will almost certainly be wondering what an earth comitology is, so I shall attempt to explain.

Every legislature has a system of delegating powers to the executive. In national parliaments that is typically legislation that confers on the government powers to adopt further measures, like the statutory instrument in the UK. The systems change slightly, but it is quite normal to confer powers on the executive, not least to deal with technical details and complex matters once the main legislation has laid down the general principles.

What is unusual in our system in the European Union is that, when we confer such powers on the Commission, we oblige it to act in conjunction with a committee of national civil servants. In many cases those committees have the power to block the Commission and refer the matter back to the Council. The Parliament has always found this objectionable: firstly because only the committees of national civil servants and not Parliament have the right to refer questions back; secondly because matters are referred back only to one branch of the legislative authority – the Council – even when the basic act has been adopted by both Parliament and the Council. We also found the system to be untransparent and complex with the numerous committees that give rise to the name of comitology.

Our reform, which went through on Thursday, means Parliament is now able to say no to any implementing measure adopted through the comitology system, and if we say no the measure cannot be enacted. While this is hardly the stuff of beach reading it is an important step forward in the maturity of the Parliament. The reform gives the Parliament parity with the Council on this issue and ensures greater scrutiny, democracy and accountability.

Today’s session in Strasbourg was briefly interrupted by UKIP staging a walk out during a vote on a resolution on the future of the EU’s “Period of Reflection” on the Constitutional Treaty, with their departure warmly applauded by MEPs intent on doing some proper parliamentary work.

UKIP’s website claims their MEPs exited when the “Committee on Legal Affairs was presenting to Parliament the Commission's proposal for re-activating the EU Constitution” – wrong on all counts (not a Commission proposal, not presented by the Legal Affairs Committee, and not proposing to “re-activate” the constitution).

It is quite shocking that even after two years in the European Parliament, that UKIP members still don't even have the slightest notion of how Parliament works in general or of the Rules of Procedure in particular - yet are very quick to accuse everyone else of violating the procedures.

They claimed that the Parliament was violating its own procedural Rule 35, which refers to "Commission proposals and other documents of a legislative nature". A resolution addressed to the European Council is obviously neither of these things. If their MEPs are unable to distinguish, one of their Group's many assistants should be able to advise them – but that would assume that they recruit their staff on the basis of competence rather than on the basis of the degree of xenophobia necessary to be a member of their party.

It was interesting to see some plaudits coming the European Parliament's way in the press today (31st May 2006).

First, the Financial Times gave an account of the progress of the services directive (“A good day for European democracy”, Quentin Peel) in which it said "quite the most striking is the central role played by the Parliament, rather than the European Commission or Council of Ministers... The Parliament came into its own as a body divided on ideological grounds, rather than purely national lines... It has shown the maturity of the parliament producing such a complex text and one of legally high quality."

Second, The Independent's leading article states that "We also owe a particular depth of gratitude to the European Parliament" for its role in challenging legislation adopted by the Council of Ministers. Of course this refers to Parliament successfully challenging in the court a decision on the retention of personal data of air passengers travelling to the United States.

Whatever the balance of arguments on each particular issue, it does show that the European Parliament plays an ever more crucial role in determining the outcome of the EU policy making. And rightly so - it's called parliamentary democracy.

Perhaps other papers will begin to pay more attention to what happens in the European Parliament and informing their readers about what really happens there.

Along with hundreds of other MEPs I am in Strasbourg this week and the current session has coincided with a welcome drive to have just one site for the European Parliament, in Brussels.

The use of both Brussels and Strasbourg has long been a contentious issue and the expense of this dual base has given Eurosceptics plenty of ammunition for their attacks against the EU.

It is the nation governments, not the European Parliament, which decides on the seats of the EU institution and this convoluted system is the result of a last-ditch compromise at the Edinburgh Summit in 1992, chaired by John Major.

It was an expensive mistake and it is essential that it is rectified as soon as possible. The current situation is not only costly but inconvenient and impacts on the efficiency of the EU.

I have recently signed an online petition which is campaigning for one seat (in Brussels) for the European Parliament and I urge all of you to do the same.

It intends to collect a million signatures and is an opportunity to have your say on this issue.

You can register and find out more at www.oneseat.eu

This will hopefully add to the pressure. But besides maximum pressure, we need to offer France a way out: after all, thanks to John Major, it has a veto on changing the situation.

That is why I have suggested a quid pro quo: Parliament to Brussels and the European Council (summit) meetings to Strasbourg. This would be quite logical: the summit is supposed to take a strategic view and would benefit from taking a certain distance from Brussels, whereas the Parliament should be on the scene where the day-to-day work goes on. Swopping the two would also give just as much prestige to Strasbourg, which is important for France and might help persuade it to do a deal.

Click here to see my motion for resolution.

I have just received the publication "The Work of the House of Lords" which gives an interesting overview of its activities.

It also contains figures on the cost of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, in total and per taxpayer. From it, I calculate the following costs per citizen:

 European Parliament £1.40 per citizen
 House of Lords £1.56 per citizen
 House of Commons £5.57 per citizen

Even allowing for a margin of error, it is clear that the European Parliament (despite the burden of interpretation and the obligation imposed on it to meet in two places) costs citizens far less than the national parliament, not least because its cost, is, of course, spread over far more citizens.

You’ve all read Eurosceptic claims that the European Parliament has no powers or simply “rubber-stamps” EU legislation. It’s one of those lies that they hope will gain currency by constant repetition.

So it was interesting to see their strategy undermined by no less a person than Nigel Farage’s partner as co-leader of UKIP’s Group in the European Parliament, Jens-Peter Bonde MEP. In a recent article in EU Observer he wrote:

“This week the European Parliament made a difference. We gave our Yes to a compromise regulation on fluorinated gases (F-gases) raising general standards and at the same time allowing Denmark and Austria to continue their bans on the use of F-gases…. the European Parliament proposed changing the proposal for total harmonisation into a minimum-regulation allowing countries to keep and insert stricter rules.”

Not only that, he admitted that the small groups in the EP can make a difference, something Eurosceptic MEPs generally deny, saying: “The amendment was proposed by Dutch MEP Hans Blokland and myself on behalf of our little group. It shows that members from small groups have the same possibility to influence legislation as MEPs from bigger groups”.

Indeed, the European Parliament is not a rubber-stamp parliament. It has no in-built automatic majority, unlike many national parliaments. To pass a proposal or an amendment, you need to build your majority case-by-case through explanation, persuasion and negotiation with colleagues from different parties and countries. As Bonde pointed out in his article: “We could not have won the battle without cross party cooperation.”

In short, if you get stuck in, work hard at talking to others and arguing the merits of your case, you will succeed. Perhaps we can now look forward to a change of attitude of the UKIP MEPs and see them actually doing some work and not just turning up only at votes to oppose everything without even reading the content.

A political party is only as good as its future, and with this in mind I was interested to see the writings of cameronleadership.co.uk, a website created by four young Conservatives to monitor the progress of David Cameron.

I noticed an entry on UKIP, and how they can be a "bunch of nutjobs". Fair enough I thought. That is until the following sentence read "but have also done some good work in Brussels".

Needless to say, the writer doesn't go on to explain what this "good work" is. While their absenteesism certainly makes the European Parliament a more pleasant place to be, ignoring the needs and rights of their constituents doesn't amount to "good work" in my view.

If this is the view of the Conservative's next generation, then the EPP will be glad to see the back of them.

Some of you may have noticed Quentin Peel’s article in the Financial Times (paid subscription necessary), lavishing MEPs with praise for the passing of the heavily amended Services Directive. Mr Peel goes as far as saying that the European Parliament “took a core piece of EU legislation and voted to change it drastically”, and in doing so we “may well have saved it”.

It's worth pointing out that this is our job! This is what we do, usually unnnoticed, week in, week out.

It's often hard for the general public to see through the eurosceptic mist, especially with nonsense claims of “unelected bureaucrats” floating around. But now that Mr Peel has set a precedent, perhaps other journalists will follow suit?

Just as British MPs are entitled to question Government ministers, MEPs have the right to question representatives from the Council and the Commission, either in writing or on the floor of Parliament. This is one of the ways in which the European Parliament holds the other institutions to account.

The nature of these questions can vary. Some are straightforwardly factual, asking for particular information. Others challenge ministers or Commissioners over their actions or intentions. Still others are there to make a political point, which can be particularly effective now that anyone can check up on their MEPs’ activities via the Europarl website.

As one might imagine in a Parliament which contains MEPs from every shade of the political spectrum, there are some members whose questions are not always, shall we say, entirely germane. But what’s even stranger is that one such individual, a certain Ashley Mote MEP, has acquired the bizarre habit of copying all his submissions to the entire Parliament via e-mail. I should explain: the e-mail system we have here in Parliament makes it easy for us to e-mail a single colleague or a group, but when it comes to writing to every single MEP in the building, most members exercise a degree of common-sense and are able to restrain themselves from flooding the system.

Not, sadly, Mr Mote. When he feels the need to expound his particular political agenda, hundreds of copies of his missives go whizzing through the ether into the inboxes of every MEP in the building. Most are swiftly transferred to wastebaskets, but of course the Commission or Council staff who receive the actual questions don’t have that option: instead, they have to spend time translating the questions into various languages, forwarding them to the relevant officials, researching responses and publishing the answers. When the questions involve holding the Commission to account, this is money well spent; but when they are nothing but childish timewasting or political points-scoring, this amounts to a spectacular abuse of taxpayers’ money.

Occasionally, someone takes the time to reply to Mr Mote and raises a chuckle with the rest of us. This actually happened twice last week. Charles Tannock, a Tory psychiatrist-turned-politician from London, responded to a Mote classic with the following:

Why are you wasting valuable time of Council officials (and therefore EU taxpayers money which includes the UK!) in translating and having to answer such ridiculous and purposeless PQs.

How about spending more time in getting involved in a constructive but critical dialogue with other EU institutions which serves the interest of your constituents and the rest of humanity.

No reply was, sadly, forthcoming.

Then there was this delightfully tongue-in-cheek response from an SNP member:

Dear colleagues,

I do apologise for the mass nature of this e-mail, though I feel it only right that I bring a marvellous e-mail facility to your attention.

If you are aware of a persistent ‘spammer’ and are tired of your inbox clogging with meaningless nonsense, then you can set up an ‘e-mail rule’ to manage your inbox.

For example, if you receive an e-mail from an individual you are quite sure has little worthwhile to contribute and you feel safe to block their e-mails from evermore, then right click on that e-mail and take the ‘create rule’ option.

… Having been using it for some months, I can vouch for how effective it is. My own ‘list of doom’ extends to a mere 15 individuals yet the rubbish e-mails I get is drastically reduced.

Touché.

What to do about the EU constitutional treaty? That's the question we debated yesterday and voted on today.

There are at least two views. One is that this text of the Constitution is dead following the referenda in France and the Netherlands; that we had better start thinking of something else and preparing a different way forward.

The other view is to say: hang on a minute, this text has actually now been ratified by a majority of Member States. The 25 national governments themselves did not declare it dead. Instead, they extended the period of ratification and opened a 'period of reflection'. In that period of reflection we must listen carefully to those who said ‘no’, but we must also listen to the majority who have said ‘yes’ and find a way forward that can ultimately bring the two together.

Eurosceptics shout loudly about the French and Dutch referenda showing that "Europe" has lost touch with public opinion and that the constitutional treaty (presumably unlike any other treaty) was an elitist project which the public is now revolting against. They never mention the referenda in other countries which endorsed the treaty, nor the fact that, in total, more people voted in favour than against.

What we have is not a mass revolt, but a divergence of views. In the EU, when countries' views diverge, the traditional pratice is to talk things through to try to overcome that divergence and to find a compromise solution. In the past, when new treaties have been rejected by a member country, ways have been found, with the agreement of the country concerned, to reassure public opinion and to allow the treaty to be adopted after a new referendum.

This time, it is far too soon to draw conclusions as to the best way forward. The period of reflection has begun by addressing issues of context rather than the text. It is only now that several governments have begun to float ideas as to what could be done about the text.

Parliament concluded that the period of reflection must be extended at least until 2007 to enable a longer and deeper reflection. Until then, all options should be kept open. Of course – as is to be expected – Parliament would prefer to maintain the text, but it recognised that that would only be possible if measures were taken to reassure and convince public opinion. What those measures might be is left open. Parliament pointed out that there are, in theory, many options: supplementary interpretative declarations, extra protocols, rewriting part of the text, rewriting the whole text, drafting a new text and so on.

Which option is best and feasible will only emerge at the end of the period of reflection. The conclusion cannot be drawn now. But one thing is certain: the status quo – that is, the current Treaties – is not sufficient for this Union in its enlarged form to function effectively or democratically. This issue will not go away.

The latest wheeze of Dan Hannan and some other eurosceptic MEPs is to claim that the European Parliament is trying to 'gag' them!

Almost all parliaments have rules in order to protect themselves against disruptive behaviour aimed at preventing them from working. Not that the rules need to be used very often; but they are there to safeguard the democratic process.

Until now, the European Parliament lacked a clear set of rules on this - and it finally got around to adopting some yesterday. They are modest. They give the President of Parliament powers that are far less than the powers of, for instance, the Speaker of the House of Commons. They are strictly circumscribed and are combined with safeguards to reassure those colleagues who feared that the President might clamp down on any kind of behaviour that was in any way colourful or lively. It does not ban vibrant debate or even visual displays, but only behaviour that any parliament would find unacceptable. The President's powers range from giving a reprimand to a Member to suspending him or her for a maximum of ten days. (If suspended, the Member would still be able to vote.)

A coherent and proportionate set of rules to protect Parliament, if necessary, became clear after some recent incidents, such as one involving an Italian MEP who tried to disrupt a formal address by the President of Italy. And let us not forget that, at the last European election, Kilroy-Silk said his ambition was to wreck the Parliament and prevent it from working. In the end, he simply disappearded without trace - but, who knows, he might, in combination with others, have made a serious effort to stop Parliament from working.

The suggestion that these rules would gag a particular viewpoint is preposterous. All views, including eurosceptic ones, are freely expressed in Parliament - and always have been, in a Parliament that contains the whole political spectrum from communists to the far-right. In fact, this reform was drafted by a Green MEP - hardly likely to want to clamp down on colourfully-expressed minority viewpoints!

Dan Hannan's comments are therefore aimed at gullible journalists hoping to get an anti-Europe story out of nothing. Unless, that is, he really thinks that these rules will target him - in which case he is either actually planning to disrupt Parliament's work, or he is paranoid. Given his general attitude to the European Union – that every aspect of it is evil – I rather think it is paranoia.

Today's Independent has a leading article on Europe that is well worth reading:

Just the previous day, Mr Blair had appeared before members of the European Parliament in Brussels. Confident, combative, uninhibited, the Prime Minister seemed to be in his element. It was a pleasure to hear a British politician speaking so unapologetically as a European. His exchanges with Nigel Farage of UKIP were especially choice. Although he sat "with our country's flag", Mr Blair scolded him, "you do not represent our country's interests". He followed up with the curt rebuke: "This is 2005, not 1945."

It's so unusual that it's worth a mention: a reasonably accurate portrayal of the EU's powers by a UK newspaper! So, newspapers can print things other than Eurosceptic scare stories…

"The EU's spectre is manifestly not haunting Europe

"In most areas of public life, acts of parliament are still passed in Westminster and Holyrood, without reference, or much reference, to Brussels. Most [EU] regulation is, however, directed to ensuring that the single market (essentially a British creation) works fairly and effectively.

"We have a European Parliament with less power than the Scottish Parliament - it can't make law on its own as Holyrood can; a European civil service (the Commission) which may have too great a power of initiative, but which again is not an autonomous law-making body; and the Council of Ministers. That body has real powers, but these are limited by the various treaties."

Amazingly, this comes three days after an FT leader said:

"Criticism of Europe's Central Bank is misplaced

"… The ECB'S institutional framework looks increasingly superior to the competing models in the UK, America and Japan."

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote in a blog entry that I'd noticed from a recent Parliament publication that UKIP don't have a representative on the Environment Committee. I went on to bemoan UKIP's inactivity in the European Parliament, especially in such a crucial area of legislation.

A week or so later, I received an undated letter on blank notepaper with no address, but which appears to have come from Tom Wise, a UKIP MEP. It complains that my blog entry on 15 November was inaccurate - in fact, that I "based the whole entry on incorrect information".

I found this rather odd. As I wrote at the time, my claim was based on an official publication of the European Parliament Information Office in London (to whose website I provided a link) on the work of the Environment committee. This publication gives a full list of UK members and I observed that there are no fewer than 13 members from the three main parties, plus the Greens, Plaid Cymru and even Sinn Fein - but not a single member from UKIP.

However, I now find that since this booklet was published (only three months ago), UKIP has taken measures to ensure that there is now one UKIP member on the relevant committee - still not a full member, but a substitute - namely Mr Wise. No doubt this is as a result of the embarrassment caused by Parliament’s publication - the timing is too significant to be regarded as a coincidence.

However, all is still not entirely well. I also note that, according to the minutes of the Environment Committee placed on Parliament’s web site (click here - scroll to page 14 of this document for a list of MEPs who attended), Mr Wise has not attended a single meeting of the committee, despite having put himself forward as a substitute member! (Unless, again, he has done so very recently, since the most recently available minutes.)

Any joy I may have in seeing UKIP MEPs finally beginning to do some work in this Parliament by taking up a place on a committee is somewhat tempered by the fact that this membership appears not to be an active one!

I have written back to Mr Wise, clarifying this and suggesting that he withdraws his allegations about how "misleading" he finds my blog entry. In fact, I rather think it is his protestations that more accurately fall under the category of "misleading"!

Browsing through a new publication of the European Parliament's information office for the UK in London entitled "What are your MEPs doing about the environment?" I notice that there are no fewer than 13 British MEPs on the European Parliament's committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. Yet there is not a single member from UKIP!

This committee probably deals with more European legislation than any other - and rightly so. The environment is one of the areas where it makes absolute sense to have common laws and standards across Europe; pollution does not respect national borders and it would be next to useless for countries to try to address these problems on their own.

Yet UKIP has chosen not to place even a single MEP on this committee. Is this because they're work shy? After all, and they haven't taken up their full allowance of places across the board, and this isn't the only committee they ignore. Or is it because they don't want to be seen to be doing anything constructive in terms of European legislation, preferring to shout general obscenities from the sidelines rather than actually get to grips with the detail?

Two visits to Parliament this week provoked some thoughts: the Archbishop of Canterbury and representatives of ethnic minority senior citizens.

The Archbishop, Dr Rowan Williams, was making his first ever visit to the European institutions in general and Parliament in particular. He told MEPs that he saw a great moral purpose to the EU, namely the vision of reconciliation, understanding and peace that lay behind Schuman’s initiative in starting it all off, but felt that the moral purpose had been neglected as Member States had focused more on pragmatic cooperation. The recent enlargement to eastern Europe, however, brought the moral argument back to the fore.

If I understood him correctly, Dr Williams said that European society was a result of centuries of dialogue, discussion and argument between Christianity and the variety of societies that had existed and developed over the ages, and between the Church(es) and political authorities. This had resulted in the argumentative democracies we now enjoy. The interactive pluralism that has developed is fundamental to our shared Europeanism, and the different strands of this argument influenced each other. For instance, the secular/human rights/enlightenment culture had only emerged thanks to the Christian notion that all souls were equal, which, over time, had helped undermine the acceptance of slavery and infanticide.

But Europe is not exclusively Christian, and Dr Williams emphasised that it should not be claimed that the definition of Europe is linked to Christianity. He supported Turkish accession to the EU, provided it meets the conditions, including respect for its minorities (which includes religious minorities). He added that minorities, in current member countries too, must be given space to express themselves in the public sphere. Is that what's been lacking in France?

Meanwhile, the ethnic minority elders, whom I had the privilege of addressing and welcoming to Parliament, came from Leeds (with help from the City Council), Gothenburg, Gent, Bucharest and Dortmund. They had been meeting to compare their situations and the particular problems that many elderly people from ethnic minorities face in terms of isolation, language difficulties and particular illnesses. Their work involved two of the most important challenges facing all European countries over the next decades: ageing population and integration of ethnic minorities. Even when no common European legislation is involved and the issue is largely one for national policy-makers to deal with, the EU can still provide a framework for learning from each other, comparing best practice and contrasting successes and failures.

The group was also a reminder that the EU’s moto of “Unity with diversity” refers not just to the diversity between countries, but the even greater diversity within countries too.

Yesterday, Geoff Hoon MP, Leader of the House of Commons, kindly hosted an event in the Jubilee Room of the Palace of Westminster to mark the publication of the 6th edition of the book The European Parliament that I co-authored with my friends Francis Jacobs and Michael Shackleton. A number of MPs and Lords turned up, and Geoff gave a glowing endorsement of the book which he recommends all MPs to read to improve their understanding of the European Parliament.

In turn, I endorsed Geoff's plans to upgrade Commons scrutiny of EU legislation by involving expert MEPs in the Commons committees.

I only attended the first couple of days of Party conference as this year it clashed with a European Parliament session in Strasbourg. Most years we manage to vote through a Parliamentary timetable that clashes with Tory Party conference - something obviously went wrong this time!

It's all right for MPs of course - they are in Parliamentary recess until October. We MEPs, however, are back in Parliament already in the last week of August.

There are eleven fringe meetings on Europe this year - but not the traditional meeting of the Labour Movement for Europe. Instead, there is an officers' meeting of this organisation, which has been largely dormant over the last few years, and we agree that it needs to be revived. A set of initiatives are planned, including setting up a website and an email list. If any readers of this blog are interested in joining, please send us an email.

Although I miss most of Party conference, I am able to keep up to date on the European side of things thanks to a weblog for New Statesman co-written by my Press and Publicity Officer, Toby Wardman.

Following yesterday's vote on software patents, I've now had a total of 36 e-mails into my Leeds office from constituents expressing their delight at the way we voted in Parliament. I can't remember having ever received such a message of support about any single issue before - just as I can't remember ever having received so much lobbying from private individuals in advance of a vote.

A particularly enthusiastic e-mail made me smile:

"Dear Richard,

"What can I say? This is truly marvellous news - and with such a majority! I am so delighted I can't quite express myself properly! Thank you so very, very much for notifying me of the outcome and for voting against the software patent madness.

"Through having to face up to the threat that this proposal posed, I have gained a better insight into the political machinations of the European Parliament. More importantly, I have greater respect for the elected individuals that comprise the European Parliament, and also for the power of the individual in lobbying for change.

"What more can I say?"

Another constituent, who represents a Linux users' group in Scarborough, wrote to let me know that he'd blogged the result, and seemed to be quite enthusiastic about it:

Fantastically, awesomely, tearfully, happily, wonderfully, we appear to have won the software patents argument. I got this at 12:07 today from Richard Corbett… How absolutely fantastic is that! The people won over the corporation.

My office today put out this press release:

The current system of basing EU institutions jointly in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg has sometimes been called “schizophrenic”. But European decision-makers have been unable to agree on a single location for Parliament, Council and the Commission – until now.

Richard Corbett, a Labour MEP and EU constitutional expert, explained:

“The search for a single location for the ‘capital' of the EU, secretly codenamed ‘Europa', has been going on for decades.

“We had to find a central location which embodied the ideal of European unity without giving preference to any member state. That was our main stumbling block.”

Read the full press release here.