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: