Graham's blog entry 7th September 2007

Published on Fri 7th Sep 2007

The European Parliament's first plenary session of the autumn had a fairly light agenda. This was reflected, sadly, in the number of MEPs absent. When I organised a Group photograph for my troops on Tuesday evening only 68 out of 105 were present. True, our holidays are far less generous than those of national parliaments and there were no crucial second-reading votes this week, but there are nonetheless important items on our agenda.

We kicked off with the floods (mainly UK) and forest fires (mainly Greece) of the summer and urged the Commission to mobilise the EU's solidarity fund to help those affected. Earlier this summer I pressed the UK Government to apply for support to help constituents in Gloucestershire and - to my surprise - was successful.

On Tuesday I met Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, to chew the cud about current affairs. He is a Liberal only in the economic sense and was the person who negotiated his party's move from the Liberal family to the Christian Democratic family in the mid 1990s. But our party was keen to have him speak at our forthcoming Brighton conference and I have been given the honour of introducing him (Monday 17th September, 3 pm, Main Conference Hall).

The UK's new Europe Minister Jim Murphy made his first visit to Strasbourg and came to seek my support for resisting a referendum on the Amending Treaty currently in preparation. He is a non-smoking, teatotal Glaswegian and seems competent enough, though I doubt he'll ever question government orthodoxy. I was tempted to tell him that the Labour government is in a hole of its own making and need not look to Liberal Democrats for support; but I share his view that a referendum on an amending treaty which few will read and even fewer understand would be a nonsense. If we're to have one, let's have a poll on the question "in or out" of the EU. At least that way we would lay the matter to rest.

Work on preparing the Amending Treaty continues apace. EU foreign ministers meet near Oporto this weekend to review progress; they hope to have agreement on a final text by the time of the heads of state and government meeting (EU summit) on 18th October. My colleague Andrew Duff MEP is one of parliament's reps on the working group drafting the treaty and reported to us on progress thus far.

Parliament's main debate of the week was on terrorism, where we heard answers from Council and Commission to oral questions Members had tabled. I used the opportunity to excoriate the Council of Ministers for having left vacant for six months the post of EU anti-terrorism co-ordinator. With the arrest midweek of terrorist suspects in Germany and Denmark, the threat is very real. I also lambasted them for the policy of confiscating lipstick and bottled water without any evidence that it is effective. People are being ripped off hugely by unscrupulous racketeers, with Bristol airport now charging 50p for a see-through plastic bag in which liquids must be placed; and an airport in Cyprus charging three pounds forty for a bottle of water airside of the security controls. (For my speech in the debate, see http://www.grahamwatsonmep.org/speeches/000118.html)

The main business of the week for me was my address to colleagues about our priorities for the new parliamentary year. With just 18 months of parliament's mandate left to run, I told them we need discipline and common purpose if we are to succeed in getting Lib Dems appointed to any of the top EU jobs in 2009. In the subsequent debate, colleagues were pretty unanimously of the view that we should form no strategic alliance with other parties at present. Our success in determining the outcome of the majority of parliamentary votes means others increasingly seek to work with us.

Yesterday morning I raised in the grandly-titled Conference of Presidents (the fortnightly meeting of the political group leaders to set Parliament's agenda) the plight of seven Tunisian fishermen arrested in Italy on 8th August. They rescued 44 migrants in distress in an inflatable dinghy and took them to the nearest port, on the Italian island of Lampedusa, in accordance with international law (the SOLAS - Saving of Lives at Sea - Convention). There they were arrested and charged with abetting illegal immigration, a charge which could see them jailed for 15 years, despite having informed the Italian coastguard. The awful reality is that five EU countries - Malta, France, Spain, Germany and Greece - now run joint patrols of the Mediterranean under the Nautilus II programme under which they send back to their country of embarkation any migrants found at sea. Since the problem is caused by a combination of lack of hope at home and easy labour opportunities abroad in a European Union which refuses to take their produce so will end up taking their people, sending them back to North Africa is no real answer. Europe desperately needs a coherent immigration policy and I was pleased to secure the support of other political groups to call for a statement from the Commission in our next plenary session.

In the afternoon I received Cornish language campaigners who had come to present their case to Parliament's all-party interest group on smaller nations. I was pleased to advise them on how to access EU funds for promotion of the county's cultural heritage. Today (Friday) I travel to Land's End to visit the Isles of Scilly Steamboat Co with local MP Andrew George. Tomorrow I attend the Devon and Cornwall region Lib Dems executive committee.