Graham's blog entry Friday 16 November 2007

Published on Fri 16th Nov 2007

Parliament met in Strasbourg this week for formal debates and votes.

We debated on Monday the situation of Roma immigrants to Italy, where the rape and brutal murder of an Italian woman ten days earlier - widely reported in the press and broadcast media - had led to a series of reprisals and a move by the Italian government to expel Roma people. The subsequent murder of a Roma woman in northern Italy was very little reported. MEPs felt that Italy had done too little to integrate the Roma (from an EU fund for this purpose Spain had drawn down EUR 52m, Poland EUR 9m and Italy zero) and that the Commissioner responsible, Italian Franco Frattini, had overstepped the mark in saying that the approach of Berlusconi's government was much better than that of current PM Romano Prodi. We voted on Thursday a resolution of mild censure on him. The integration of Europe's 9m Roma, a people without a homeland, persecuted in this century just as they and the Jews were in the last, will be a challenging task for many years to come.

On Tuesday we heard Nicolas Sarkozy, on his first visit to the EP since becoming President of France. His speech was upbeat, pledging to repair the damage caused by the French 'non' to the EU's constitutional treaty and committing himself to a 'political' Europe with a common defence and security policy. There are two big problems, however, which became evident to me when he met the political group leaders for a chat before his formal address. The first is that he refuses EU accession for Turkey, even though negotiations are underway: the second that his economic policy is utterly incoherent. He is Blair minus. I did not share Blair's vision, but at least it was coherent.

Our headline debate (on Wednesday morning) was on a Communication from the European Commission about how to respond to globalisation. It was a great opportunity for a party political slanging match, but little more (for my speech see http://www.alde.eu/index.php?id=flv&no_cache=1&tx_pixflv_pi1[fileid]=29426 ).

Our more substantial discussions were on the Commission's programme of work for 2008, a kind of "Queen's Speech" type debate, on which Andrew Duff led ably for us in the absence through pregnancy of my deputy Silvana Koch Mehrin and through bereavement of Diana Wallis.

On the legislative front we approved a Directive aimed at improving soil quality, though much amended from the Commission's draft. We amended the draft Directive on the inclusion of civil aviation in the emissions trading scheme so that tougher quotas will be imposed on airlines to reduce emissions from aircraft. And we approved the revision of nine directives on financial services covering things like capital adequacy and abuse of market power.

In its annual report on EU book-keeping the Court of Auditors reported much improvement, but still failed to sign off the accounts because national finance ministers still won't guarantee that EU spending in the member states (which is their responsibility) is properly accounted for.

Perhaps the most interesting development of the week for me was a breakdown in relations between the Socialist and Christian Democrat Groups, who until now have colluded in carving up many of parliament's decisions. The bad blood in the Grosse Koalition in Berlin might be partly the reason: the left feels a need to be more aggressive to combat falling ratings in the polls.

Today I have been at a Liberal International meeting in Hamburg, tonight I speak to party members in Salisbury and tomorrow I attend the joint conference of the Western Counties and Devon and Cornwall Liberal Democrats in Plymouth. See you there, I hope!