Graham's blog entry for 2nd March 2007

Published on Fri 2nd Mar 2007

Back bright and early on Monday after a refreshing week's break, I have to call a crisis meeting to discuss cancelling, at just one week's notice, a meeting of my political group in Bulgaria. With over 60 members and an equivalent number of others (staff, interpreters etc), all having booked and paid for travel and hotels it is not a decision to be taken lightly. But we have two Lib Dem parties in Bulgaria: the National Movement (Simeon II's party) and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. They have fallen out over a vote in Parliament to deny Bulgarian citizens living in Turkey the right to vote in the forthcoming European elections. The MRF polls a lot of votes from the many Bulgarians living there, most of whom are of Turkic origin; the National Movement (despite being in a government coalition with the MRF) supported the move to limit the franchise, leading to a huge falling out between the parties. Our rule is that we travel nowhere unless our local member parties (in many countries there is more than one) agree to share a public platform during our visit; and on this occasion they would not. We agreed that I should make a brief private visit, since in any case I have an invitation to meet the Prime Minister, and see the two party leaders separately.

Tuesday and Wednesday brought welcome relief from such distractions, as I visited first Riga, the capital of Latvia, and then Copenhagen.

In Latvia I went to visit our friends in the party Latvia's Way. They were in government until 2004, but lost so heavily they returned not a single MP to Parliament. After three years in the wilderness they came back into Parliament and into government (as a junior coalition partner) last September. I met their new party leader and Interior Minister Ivars Godmanis and a number of other party members, in addition to representatives of other parties.

Latvia's integration into the EU has generally worked well. They are benefiting from EU cohesion funding, enjoying 11% annual GNI growth and a property price boom. But socially they still face big challenges to grant citizenship rights to over 20% of their people who are of Russian origin and to persuade their people to be tolerant towards homosexuals. With fewer than two and a half million inhabitants, Latvia is one of the smallest EU member states. Visiting the speaker of parliament in Riga it strikes me that it is the equivalent of visiting Exeter in the independent state of Devon and Cornwall which would appeal to my Westminster colleague Andrew George MP.

Though Denmark's population is only just over double that of Latvia's, Copenhagen feels so much more substantial. I met two Ministers from the governing economic Liberal (Venstre) Party and one of the leaders of the opposition social Liberal (Radikale Venstre) Party. Their MEPs sit together in my Group in Strasbourg. I also met the leader of the Social Democrats, Helle Thorning Schmidt, who was an MEP in our last mandate and is married to Glenys and Neil Kinnock's son Stephen. I can hardly wish her well in a country run by Liberal Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, but she could well be the next PM and her ideas are not much different from ours. Nor, indeed, are those of Environment Minister Connie Hedegaard from Denmark's conservative party, our junior coalition partner there, with whom I discussed EU legislation on waste management. There is remarkable consensus in their political system, particularly on EU issues. They had their painful national debate after their 'No' vote to the Maastricht Treaty. Here in Britain we've still to have one.

LYMEC, the liberal youth movement of the European Community, is running a campaign against the EU's requirement for visas for students from south eastern European countries. They are running a series of stunts, rallies and conferences, one of which I addressed in Brussels yesterday. EU countries still believe they can control movement across frontiers in this way. Increasingly, however, experience shows first that they cannot and second that freer movement of people adds to economic growth. The best way to prevent unwanted persons entering your territory is to allow and encourage more co-operation between police forces and intelligence services; but this the Tories and some of their continental counterparts oppose.

This morning I shall be in Taunton, meeting the chairman of the county's European Movement and then Somerset County Council's EU team. This afternoon I address pupils at the George Ward School in Melksham before going on to Salisbury for a local TV interview. Tomorrow morning I'll be in Bristol and on Sunday I head for Sofia. I shall miss Liberal Democrat conference in Harrogate so would appreciate reports from any readers who attend.