Graham Watson MEP

Graham's newsletter Friday 25th November 2011

Greetings

At three a.m last Saturday morning negotiators from Parliament and Council reached agreement on the budget for 2012; this deal, for a budget increase of around 2%, now has formally to be approved by the member states in Council and by MEPs. Parliament's negotiators insisted on increases in the budget for Frontex, the border policing agency, and aid for refugees, and obtained these.

A fifth government fell victim to the EU's financial difficulties last weekend when Spain's voters followed those of Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Italy in throwing the rascals out. On Monday Hungary asked both the EU and the IMF for financial aid. Also on Monday the new Greek PM was in Brussels and on Tuesday the new Italian PM; the latter also met Merkel and Sarkozy in Strasbourg for a ménage-a-trois summit about dealing with the challenge of sovereign debt. On Wednesday the European Commission unveiled its Green Paper on Eurobonds (aka stability bonds) and Cssr Olli Rehn (LD, Finland) presented plans for two new draft Regulations to oblige countries to move towards balanced budgets. (One important difference between a Directive and a Regulation is that the latter, once approved by the legislature, has immediate effect.) We are edging slowly towards a pooling of some for the debt of the weaker eurozone countries in a Redemption Fund to be paid off over 20 or 25 years.

The Foreign Affairs committee gave a second reading on Tuesday to my proposals to prevent leaders of authoritarian regimes laundering their often dubiously acquired wealth through banking and property services in the EU. I met the 'shadow rapporteurs' (the MEPs designated by the other political parties to follow and co-ordinate amendments to my proposals) before the meeting and agreed a number of 'compromise amendments' to bring many of their ideas into the text: I hope to secure broad consensus for the votes in committee next month. I am now more optimistic that my proposals will be adopted when they come to the floor of the House in February.

The Committee also heard from the Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, where talks with Serbia have just re-started under the EU's aegis, and from the EU's new ambassador to India, with which we hope to secure a free trade agreement.

On Tuesday I met Parkinson's Disease sufferer Joanna Collinge of Wiltshire. She and others were in Brussels to plead for more funds for EU-wide research into the disease. I fear however that the budget restrictions will make this unlikely, tho in the area of research there are clear advantages in 27 countries pooling their resources.

There was good and bad news for biodiversity this week. 17,000 sq kilometres have been added to the 150,000 sq km of marine areas within the Natura protected area network. The UK, under our new government, has designated a lot of it but seven other member states are also involved. There is evidence that these areas safeguard and restore bio-diversity, which is just as well since despite last year being the International Year for Biodiversity the International Union for the Conservation of Nature reports an alarming decline in plant and animal species on its latest 'Red List'.

Talks on milk contracts continue. MEPs hope to find agreement before the year's end with Ministers in Council on a legal basis covering dairy farmers' contractual relations with sometimes unscrupulous retail food chains.

I have been in Palermo, Sicily since Wednesday at the annual congress of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, where I'm hoping to be elected as the new Party Leader later today. I served as Leader of our parliamentary group from 2002 to 2009.

Please wish me luck.

Regards

Graham

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