Graham's blog entry Friday 15 February 2008

Published on Fri 15th Feb 2008

Ryanair got my week off to a good start, flying me smoothly on Sunday evening directly from Bristol to Riga, the capital of Latvia. (I felt I could almost forgive them from making the bulk of their profits from rowdy English folk going on hen and stag parties to Riga and gloomy Latvians coming to work in the south west.) On Monday I met the new Latvian Prime Minister, Ivars Godmanis, who has a reputation as a good crisis manager which will be put to the test in a country seeing a sharp fall in economic growth and a sharp rise in inflation. We discussed the economic outlook and also issues such as energy policy and border control. I also met Andris Berzins and Karina Petersone, parliamentary leaders of our sister party Latvia's Way, and leaders of two other parties who may send MEPs to the Group I lead after the 2009 elections.

By the time I got back to Brussels on Monday night, the regular meeting of the 27 Finance ministers and the ad hoc meeting of MPs from 27 member states to discuss economic reform were well under way. I was involved in neither, so was able to turn my attention on Tuesday to Mrs Durda Adlesic, deputy PM of Croatia and leader of one of our sister parties there, who was in Brussels to plead her country's case for early EU membership. She found sympathetic interlocutors, since most of us believe Croatia should join; but few now believe it will be possible in 2009, which some Germans had optimistically suggested, since the pace of reform (especially judicial reform) is painfully slow.

The European Liberal Democrat and Reform (ELDR) Party held a housewarming reception at its new HQ in the Rue Montoyer. My regular renunciation of alcohol in February prevented me from enjoying it fully, but it probably helped bring poignancy to my reflection on how far pan-European political parties have now developed. The voters in elections to the EP may think they are voting for their long-established national party of choice and of course they are; but they are also voting for an EU-wide 'holding company' in whose HQ many of the important decisions are made. In the case of ELDR it has the active participation of its member parties and a very able team of eight or nine people from different countries, often with experience of working for their parties or for MPs back home.

The EP's newly-formed 'contact group' for Iraq this week elected my colleague Emma Nicholson MEP as its convenor (say 'chairman' if you must, but 'convenor' is gender neutral). I am very pleased for Emma, since she has huge experience in Iraq and the establishment of the Group was her idea after security considerations torpedoed a formal inter-parliamentary delegation. Emma visits Iraq regularly. She will now be taking other MEPs with her with the backing of the EP and organising meetings with Iraqi MPs who are able to visit Brussels.

Probably the most important development of the week was the adoption by the European Commission on Wednesday of two communications on border control and a report on the development of the Frontex border control agency since its creation in 2005. These have no legal force, but arise from the inclusion of nine new countries in the 'schengen' border free agreements following the recent EU expansion. They recommend tighter external border controls and much greater use of fingerprinting of those arriving and leaving. Liberal Democrats are not opposed to any of this in principle, but we will need to be satisfied that the measures are justified and in proportion to any threat; and that there are strict safeguards governing the retention and use of date gathered for border control purposes.

My most eminent constituent visited Parliament yesterday. HRH Prince Charles wished to address MEPs on climate change, though not to take questions afterwards. A virulent stomach bug prevented me from meeting him at a private event the evening before, but I was pleased to hear a good speech with a number of specific proposals and an appropriate sense of urgency. Whether the UK's head of state would have agreed with it all I am not so sure, but I guess the Palace uses less red felt tip to delete passages from Clarence House of which they disapprove than does No 10 of ministerial whim.

Yesterday afternoon I launched my 'Khodorkovsky counter' to draw attention to the jailed oligarch's plight in advance of the Russian parliamentary elections. I'm surprised parliament's authorities allowed me to get away with it, but for the next twenty days there will be a massive display board on prominent view in the House with, on one side, the number of days Mikhail Khodorkovsky has spent in jail for financing the Liberal opposition to Putin and, on the other, the number of days remaining before a Presidential election in which no Liberal candidate has been allowed to stand. It will follow us to Strasbourg next week if we can find a way of shipping it down there.

I return to my constituency tonight but have no constituency events this weekend. My children's school holidays do not coincide with parliamentary holidays this year, so I've decided at least to dedicate to them this weekend and next.