Graham's blog entry 11th May 2007

Published on Fri 11th May 2007

The extent to which the EU is still a confederal rather than a federal system is illustrated by the degree of focus on the games of musical chairs in our national capitals. This week we had two: the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as President of France, filling many column inches with speculation about what it means for the EU; and the announcement of the imminent departure of Tony Blair, met in Brussels with a curious mixture of relief and foreboding. Nobody knows quite what Gordon Brown's table manners will be at European Council meetings.

I was surprised and rather embarrassed by a couple of lines in Tony Blair's announcement, when he said: "this country is a blessed nation. The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth". Perhaps it is my continental sense of international sensitivity, but I find this statement arrogant, boastful and unprovable. It may go down well in Sedgefield, but in today's global village his speech was listened to by continentals from Calais to the Carpathians and probably more widely still. If a German Prime Minister said something similar, the UK's popular press would go into spasms of shock with headlines about 'Übermenschen'. Blair's sentiment reminded me of Flanders and Swann's mocking lines 'The English, the English, the English are best, I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest'. Or, to use a more recent satirical analogy, they seem designed more for Monty Python than for modern politics; and I suspect they will be met with an embarrassed silence in our partner countries.

May 9 is Schuman Day, the day when Robert Schuman's call for European Unity is celebrated in the six founding countries of the EU and in Brussels. But this year it fell on a Wednesday and Parliament decided to not to interrupt its plenary session in Brussels, even though Council and Commission were closed. Our new President had invited twelve Nobel Prize winners to a ceremonial sitting to honour them. Frankly, I expected it to be a rather dull occasion. Yet when eight of them took the floor in quick succession to share with us just a few of their thoughts it was riveting. British medical researcher Tim Hunt, one of the first to speak, was brilliant. Two later speakers, one a Dutch winner of the Nobel science prize and one a peace prize winner from Northern Ireland, berated the EU for having encouraged the Palestinians to hold elections and then refused to accept the results. And another told us in no uncertain terms to get our act together and agree on a common language. Their courage was hugely refreshing. For further details: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/011-6466-129-05-19-902-20070507IPR06397-09-05-2007-2007-true/default_en.htm .

There followed a debate on EU-Russia relations in which I argued for postponement of the EU-Russia summit in protest against Putin's policies. The spur was the state-sanctioned violent siege of the Estonian embassy in Moscow last week; yet this is the but the latest straw in a series of attacks on democratic values which stretch from the murder last year of Anna Politkovskaya, the 25th victim of extrajudicial killing in Russia in ten years, through the ban on the participation of the Yabloko opposition party in recent elections in St Petersburg and the forced closure of many organisations of civil society, to the continued torture in Chechnya and the attacks on Polish meat imports. If Russia does not respect the commitments it assumed when it joined the Council of Europe we should not support their entry into the WTO at present. And our most effective protest would be to call off the summit, depriving them of the international respect they crave. To see my speech, visit:

http://www.grahamwatsonmep.org/speeches/000105.html

In committee on Wednesday we scored a minor victory when our amendment to put health services back in to the Services Directive (at second reading) was adopted with support from the European People's Party. It means that the EU's internal market will cover the cross-border provision of health services too. On the floor of the House, Parliament voted yesterday on a measure to install better rear view mirrors on heavy goods vehicles to prevent a repeat of some horrific recent accidents.

Today I visit the Severn Wye Energy Agency in Mitcheldean with Cllr Roger Brown. I then meet Cllr Henry Hobhouse to discuss Somerset's response to climate change and I travel to Heathrow for a flight to Bulgaria, where I spend Saturday speaking at European election campaign rallies in Razgrad and Gabrovo organised by our two member parties there. On Sunday I introduce constituents from Cirencester Agriculture College to Bulgaria's Agriculture Minister. On Monday I shall be back in Brussels.

Have fun, and don't be disheartened by the reporting of last week's local election results. Across the South West region we suffered four spectacular losses to the Tories (North Somerset, Torbay, Bournemouth and North Wiltshire) but also enjoyed four pretty spectacular gains (Caradon, Taunton Deane, Tewkesbury and Mendip). Overall we held on well against a strong Tory challenge and prevented Cameron claiming the kind of victory which points to national success.