Graham's blog entry 9th November 2006

Published on Thu 9th Nov 2006

Cornwall scored a major EU success this week when the European Investment Bank agreed a loan for GBP82 million for a waste management project involving a new energy from waste plant, two recycling centres, two landfill sites and a number of civic amenity facilities. A new type of public-private partnership in waste management, it will cut the amount of waste which goes to landfill.

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Early this week I took the leaders of the national delegations from within the Group I lead to a conference centre outside Brussels to review our achievements in the first half of this parliament and plan for the second half. The mood was good and I think we will reach agreement next week in Strasbourg on how we proceed, which is important for me personally since the Group has a leadership election in January. If re-elected (for a third two-and-a-half year term) I will become the longest serving leader of the European Parliament's Liberal Group.

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I received in Brussels on Wednesday the two new Commissioners-designate, Meglena Kuneva from Bulgaria and Leonard Orban from Romania. Both are Liberals, which - together with the decision by Polish Commissioner Danuta Hubner to join the Liberal family - means that there will be more Liberal Commissioners than from any other party. Of course the Commission, as an administration, is not organised primarily along party lines; but nonetheless it is important for the influence we wield in decision-making. Meglena has been proposed for the Consumer Protection portfolio and Leonard for Multilingualism; both must face approval hearings in Parliament before taking up office on 1st January.

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My colleague Elspeth Attwooll MEP hosted on behalf of our Group a conference on fisheries partnership agreements this week. These are agreements whereby the EU gives generous development aid in return for fishing rights. Lib Dems have regularly voted to oppose them in recent years since they involve offering generous short term help for the medium to long term exhaustion of fish stocks. To a country like Gabon, the agreement provides 36% of the country's annual income, so voting against is not easy. But research published in Science magazine suggests that almost all the world's fish and crustaceans will be extinct by 2050 if humankind continues over-fishing and polluting the seas. The scientists are worried and we should be too.

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Europe's energy politics came to the fore again this week when, on Sunday night, ten million homes lost their electricity supply for an hour after a failure caused a 10,000 megawatt deficit in Germany's network. Germany, Spain, France, Italy and to a lesser extent the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Portugal were affected.

How did it happen? The supply to a high voltage cable was stopped to allow a boat to pass through a lock in Northern Germany!

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The main political news from the Council of Ministers (25 national governments meeting together in Brussels, largely in secret) this week was the failure of our Social Affairs Ministers to agree on a new Working Time Directive. Since 23 countries are in breach of the current law (because they don't count doctors on-call hours as working time, despite being told to by the EU Court of Justice) the Commission may now have to take legal proceedings against each of them. Why could they not reach agreement? Due to intransigence by the UK, which allows employers to work people too hard, and France, which does not work hard enough. It's the same old story...

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Just before leaving Brussels this morning for Morocco, where I address the Liberal International Conference in Marrakech tomorrow and then Ankara, where I address the conference of the governing AK party on Saturday, I managed to get on to Parliament's agenda for next week a debate on the killings in Gaza. The Israelis have once again offended against all human decency.