Strasbourg
Commentary Plenary Session March 11th - 14th
2013
Tuesday
Votes on greenhouse gas emissions, consumer protection, the economy,
gender and women's rights (esp in North Africa)
Wednesday
and the Multiannual framework vote, ie the size of the EU budget.
You will have seen in the press that Parliament voted to reject the
planned cuts, we voted to support them. In the course of that the
motion to have a secret ballot on it was rejected. But beware, it is
not over yet and, even if the cuts remain we will still end up paying
more than at present. We are one of the biggest contributors and its
the small countries who will benefit. How will Cameron cover that
one?
That was followed
by 4 different reports on the CAP with a total of 800+ amendments. We
were there for over two and a half hours in spite of calls to spread
it over two days. The vote to return it to committee to cut it down
to size were rejected by MEP vote. Ask yourself, how reliable is the
voting on an issue like the CAP, which absorbs the greatest share of
EU funding, after over 2 hours of concentrated voting?
The CAP voting
was all concluded but there were other votes to come, in the course
of which the president of the day called a short recess, turned to
leave the platform and collapsed. Several doctors rushed to his aid
and the ambulance took 30 minutes to get there. Not sure of the
reason but it was either a heart attack or, some say, a stroke.
Business halted and remaining votes put off until Thursday.
Thursday
Any day always starts with comments from the president of the day
and, believe it or not, no mention was made of the president who had
collapsed in the course of duty on Wednesday. No progress report,
nothing!
One of the votes
was on "Integration of migrants..... social security
coordination". It passed by 334 - 247 votes, not that anyone
took any notice of my 2 minute speech on the previous evening. Video
on my web site, and, just to illustrate how difficult it can be
here,-
You may notice
that I got the gavel for running over time allocated, 2 mins! That
was partly due to altering my speech just before delivery. I was in
the house to hear the rapporteur start the debate. Her address
included a phrase, " if an Indian cannot get a job here he can
always go to the US". Wonderful, my original script said that
the prior claim for Bulgarians and Romanians over non- EU workers
would act against members of our Commonwealth, to whom we owe a debt.
So I took that out, replaced by the bit you will find.
You see, I was
due to speak at 8.0 pm, the normal time for our weekly "Gadfly"
dinner. That timing allowed me to speak and get to the restaurant,
except that it did not. Speakers always run over time and, these
days, there is the possibility of a "Blue card" question
from the floor of the House. So I kept an eye on the electronic list
on my office computer and, as 8.00 pm approached, my start time
slipped to 8.30pm, to 9.00pm and, when, at 8.00 pm, the computer
showed my start time to be 9.30 pm I left for the restaurant, having
ordered a car to bring me back from dinner at 9.15pm.
I got the first
course in, we are always late starting, warned the friendly
restaurateur, and the car got me to the House by 9.30, spoke at
about 9.50, left for the restaurant again and finished my dinner.
Indigestion again!
All that
illustrates that we have to be flexible, especially with regards to
time of speaking. My delay on Tuesday was not unusual. That it caused
me to eat dinner in two parts an hour apart will not have bothered
the powers that be.
Derek Clark
MEP Strasbourg March 14th 2013
