Graham's blog entry for 9th February 2007

Published on Fri 9th Feb 2007

Environmental challenges again dominated the headlines in Brussels. As expected, the Commission published on Wednesday a white paper on reduction of CO2 emissions from cars. They retained their 1995 headline goal of a 30% cut by 2012, but recognised that the EU's car manufacturers are not likely to meet their earlier 2008 targets and so put some of the onus of fuel suppliers to produce cleaner fuels. Nonetheless I suspect the public outrage which greeted attempts by German carmakers to have the proposals watered down may produce faster progress. If it does not we will be obliged to legislate more stringently later.

The other aspect of environment policy in the news is a draft directive due to be adopted by the Commission today on criminal sanctions for environmental crimes such as trade in endangered species, use of ozone depleting substances and illegal dumping of toxic waste. The Commission first tried to do this in 2001 but the member states refused. Following a judgement in the European Court of Justice eighteen months ago in the Commission's favour, the new directive will insist that member states have 'effective, proportionate and dissuasive' criminal sanctions. At present both the definition of environmental crime and the sanctions applied vary widely from one country to another. The right wing will of course be up in arms about this 'power grab by Brussels'. My colleagues and I believe it's a sensible development of EU standards; what's the point of having environmental policy if it is not properly enforced? I was able to embarrass Tory MEP Tim Kirkhope on BBC TV World by pointing out that in cases like this the Tories seem to oppose law and order.

There is a head of steam building for an upgrading of the United Nations' Environment Programme through the creation of a new agency, the UN Environment Organisation, since last week's conference of climate change scientists in Paris.

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Addressing MPs from Lib Dem parties in national parliaments in advance of an InterParliamentary meeting on economic competitiveness on Monday, I stressed the need to dovetail the so called 'Lisbon Agenda' on competitiveness with the 'Gothenburg Agenda' on environmental sustainability. Only when we learn to do things more intelligently, working with the grain of nature, will we really crack the environmental challenges which our behaviour is generating. I hope we will soon be able to look back on an era of human history which we will recognise as an era of profligate consumption.

Sadly but not unusually, the UK parliament sent only one MP to this interparliamentary meeting, an unheard-of Labour member. All other countries accorded it much greater importance. A British civil servant tried to cover his embarrassment by pointing out that with three UK civil servants present 'at least it looks as if we're sending four'.

The German Bundestag announced this week the opening of a new office in Brussels, with a staff of nine, to inform German MPs of legislative initiatives being prepared in Brussels. The UK tries to do the same with just two junior clerks from the Commons and the Lords.

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I attended a parliamentary hearing of experts on Wednesday, held at my suggestion, about the events leading up to the beaching of the MSC Napoli in Lyme Bay. Today I'll be down at Branscombe with Richard Younger-Ross MP to observe the craning off of containers, a process which - at a maximum of forty a day and with 900 containers still on board as deck cargo - will take at least a month. To remove all the other cargo and tow the ship away could take several months yet. We are very fortunate this was not a major maritime disaster. To me it underlines the need for the new package of measures currently being debated by MEPs in Parliament and Ministers in Council which would start to bring safety measures in shipping up to the standards we have for air transport.

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I was pleased to welcome to Brussels this week a group of visitors from the Party's international relations committee. They spent a couple of days with us, looking at what our MEPs are doing. I hope they were favourably impressed.

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This afternoon I have meetings at County Hall in Exeter about the Napoli and a meeting with South West Water. This evening I address a meeting in the city about EU support for Palestine, during which I will feel obliged to criticise one of my former employers, HSBC, for the outrageous bank charges they've levied on EU funding for the Palestinian Authority. Tomorrow I attend a local LibDem fundraiser in south Somerset.