Graham's blog Friday 18 July 2008

Published on Fri 18th Jul 2008

I was enjoying a LibDem barbecue on the banks of the River Tone at lunchtime on Sunday when news reached me of Bronislaw Geremek's death in a car accident. My press team, who are first class, issued my statement in English and French within two hours.

Bronislaw Geremek was Lech Walesa's intellectual inspiration in the building of the Gdansk shipyards' 'Solidarity' movement which brought down Poland's Communist regime and started the chain of events which led to the Soviet Union's collapse and the EU entry of ten former Soviet bloc countries. He founded a Liberal Party called the Union for Freedom and became the foreign minister who took his country into NATO. A charming and unassuming history professor with a mischievous sense of humour, he inspired a generation of young Poles with his distinctive brand of Jewish-Catholic Liberalism. An MEP since Poland's entry to the EU, he was always a stimulating and engaging colleague. He died, age 76, when his car crossed the central reservation of the highway near Poznan in wet weather and ploughed into the path of an oncoming van.

Brussels was starting its last week before the summer recess when the newspapers spread the news. I read the lesson at a small ecumenical church service on Wednesday and cancelled a visit to the Far East planned for next week to be able to attend his funeral in Poland on Monday. My Group will organise a proper commemoration of his life shortly after Parliament resumes. We mourn the death of a friend and colleague who was a great Liberal Democrat.

On Monday I spoke to 40 young people from south west England, visiting us as part of the UK Youth Parliament programme. They endured two of their region's MEPs before being given a guided tour of our Brussels buildings where Parliament's committees, in their last week of meetings before the summer break, were entertained by no fewer than twenty French government ministers formally presenting their EU Presidency ambitions. President Sarkozy put his foot in it by being reported as saying to his MPs - just days before an official visit to Ireland - that the inhabitants of the emerald isle will simply have to vote again; but his government ministers were almost flawless in their talks with MEPs.

On Wednesday evening I introduced Baroness (Ros) Scott of Needham Market to the branch of LD Party members who live and work in Brussels. She was the guest of honour at their summer barbecue and is a candidate to succeed Simon Hughes MP as party president. True to form, she was mightily impressive.

I stayed in Brussels last night for the opportunity of supper with Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. We discussed prospects for the year ahead, including how last month's agreement by 27 governments on revision of the Working Time Directive - after 17 years of wrangling - may, ironically, have handed the Socialists a campaign weapon in their fight for a more socialist Europe; my view is that they will almost certainly oppose the deal. However I had arranged for the restaurant to serve us Somerset Cider Brandy as a digestif, to impress upon him the importance of our campaign to have the name given 'protected geographical origin' status, so the evening was brought to a pleasant and mellow conclusion. We each have another week to go before departing on holiday. He must feel the need of it even more than I do.

Today I am in Exeter for the South West Regional Assembly, tomorrow clearing my constituency office of casework and on Sunday hoping to visit David Laws MP's garden party before returning to Brussels that evening for an early start Monday for Warsaw.

The rest of next week will be desk-tidying in Brussels, so I will write again when the House returns at the end of August. Meanwhile, happy hols!