More from Brussels

Brussels Commentary 30 Employment Committee 8th & 9th July 2013

Even in July no less than 16 reports to debate and four to vote on, covering 56 pages, with many amendments on each page. Do you wonder that all this stuff comes out as it does, meaningless tripe but armed with the requirement, eventually, of having to pass into the law of each member state?

Tuesday "Gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on the stock exchange". The women's committee, FEMM, sent an opinion on this one, so see Godfrey's contribution in that committee. http://youtu.be/4yqGu1cCrDc Naturally it passed, 27 to 5.

You might like to know that an Empl Cttee member, Mrs McIntyre, spoke vigorously against this report saying that, as the boss of a company she was insulted that people might think she gained that position as a token woman. "No", she said, "nothing of the sort, I got that on my own merits!

Wednesday mainly voting, nearly 2 hours

"Tackling Youth Unemployment" ran to 37 pages, about 350 amendments. (NB If you think I ought to know exactly please realise that the amendments are all numbered but do not come out in numerical order on the voting list. Add to that the 20+ amendments from other committees, also all over the place).

You might also like to know that the voting lists do not come out until about 7.30pm the evening before the vote and John then has the task of indicating how I should vote on each amendment. Before I had a personal assistant here I did that myself by going through the books of amendments, where they are in numerical order. I marked each one, some in the committee session as it went on, the rest at the hotel before and after dinner, then transcribed the indication for myself onto the voting list. John saves me an enormous amount of work. We meet before voting at 9.00 am and go through the votes for me to approve or otherwise. He's on the same wavelength so little difference of opinion.

Youth unemployment in the EU,-

23% across the Eu

15 % or less in Austria, Germany Netherlands

but 9% in Germany and Austria

55% in Greece

55% in Spain

Some NEETS (not employed, or in education or training), EU wide in 2011,-

7.-5 million in 15- 25 age range

6.5 million in 25 - 29 age range.

I remarked in an earlier commentary that I had no idea as to the nature of the "Youth Guarantee" aimed to combat youth unemployment. I now understand that it is a fund for companies to set up training schemes, wonderful! But, small firms, one or two employees, will not have the scope to make use of it, not enough variety, so the big companies, who could do this anyway, will get the cash and, once again, the SMEs left out.

Final comment. The behaviour of members in committee leaves a lot to be desired. MEPs are located in the centre with the wings of the chamber for assistants, the commission reps and so on. Always a few assistants come across to bring info to their MEP which we do not do. John gets it all tidied up before I get in. Today was like Paddy's Market, assistants all over the place, with, at one time, four assistants standing in front of me briefing their MEPs. There was even a 12 year old lad sitting with his father, even assistants are not allowed to sit with the MEPs.

To cap it all, no less than 5 times the president had to tell either the EPP group, or the S & D

MEPs, that there were too many of their group voting. The numbers of MEPs from each political group on the committee are regulated to reflect the groups' numerical strength in the parliament. The numbers of each group voting is available to the president when there is an electronic vote. This only happens in our committee as a check in a close vote and for the final vote on the whole proposal. So, if 5 votes had excess MEPs voting in electronic votes were they still there voting on the show of hands, which is 90% of the votes?

That's how the EU makes decisions which can/ will affect people in the UK.

This being the last committee, following the last plenary before the summer recess, so this is my last commentary until September 12th.

Have a good summer, I will!

Derek Clark MEP Brussels 9th July 2013

Brussels Commentary 30 Employment Committee 8th & 9th July 2013

Brussels Commentary 30 Employment Committee 8th & 9th July 2013

Even in July no less than 16 reports to debate and four to vote on, covering 56 pages, with many amendments on each page. Do you wonder that all this stuff comes out as it does, meaningless tripe but armed with the requirement, eventually, of having to pass into the law of each member state?

Tuesday "Gender balance among non-executive directors of companies listed on the stock exchange". The women's committee, FEMM, sent an opinion on this one, so see Godfrey's contribution in that committee. Carren please insert the link here Naturally it passed, 27 to 5.

You might like to know that an Empl Cttee member, Mrs McIntyre, spoke vigorously against this report saying that, as the boss of a company she was insulted that people might think she gained that position as a token woman. "No", she said, "nothing of the sort, I got that on my own merits!

Wednesday mainly voting, nearly 2 hours

"Tackling Youth Unemployment" ran to 37 pages, about 350 amendments. (NB If you think I ought to know exactly please realise that the amendments are all numbered but do not come out in numerical order on the voting list. Add to that the 20+ amendments from other committees, also all over the place).

You might also like to know that the voting lists do not come out until about 7.30pm the evening before the vote and John then has the task of indicating how I should vote on each amendment. Before I had a personal assistant here I did that myself by going through the books of amendments, where they are in numerical order. I marked each one, some in the committee session as it went on, the rest at the hotel before and after dinner, then transcribed the indication for myself onto the voting list. John saves me an enormous amount of work. We meet before voting at 9.00 am and go through the votes for me to approve or otherwise. He's on the same wavelength so little difference of opinion.

Youth unemployment in the EU,-

23% across the Eu

15 % or less in Austria, Germany Netherlands

but 9% in Germany and Austria

55% in Greece

55% in Spain

Some NEETS (not employed, or in education or training), EU wide in 2011,-

7.-5 million in 15- 25 age range

6.5 million in 25 - 29 age range.

I remarked in an earlier commentary that I had no idea as to the nature of the "Youth Guarantee" aimed to combat youth unemployment. I now understand that it is a fund for companies to set up training schemes, wonderful! But, small firms, one or two employees, will not have the scope to make use of it, not enough variety, so the big companies, who could do this anyway, will get the cash and, once again, the SMEs left out.

Final comment. The behaviour of members in committee leaves a lot to be desired. MEPs are located in the centre with the wings of the chamber for assistants, the commission reps and so on. Always a few assistants come across to bring info to their MEP which we do not do. John gets it all tidied up before I get in. Today was like Paddy's Market, assistants all over the place, with, at one time, four assistants standing in front of me briefing their MEPs. There was even a 12 year old lad sitting with his father, even assistants are not allowed to sit with the MEPs.

To cap it all, no less than 5 times the president had to tell either the EPP group, or the S & D

MEPs, that there were too many of their group voting. The numbers of MEPs from each political group on the committee are regulated to reflect the groups' numerical strength in the parliament. The numbers of each group voting is available to the president when there is an electronic vote. This only happens in our committee as a check in a close vote and for the final vote on the whole proposal. So, if 5 votes had excess MEPs voting in electronic votes were they still there voting on the show of hands, which is 90% of the votes?

That's how the EU makes decisions which can/ will affect people in the UK.

This being the last committee, following the last plenary before the summer recess, so this is my last commentary until September 12th.

Have a good summer, I will!

Derek Clark MEP Brussels 9th July 2013

Strasbourg Commentary Plenary Session July 1st- 4th 2013

Strasbourg Commentary Plenary Session July 1^st- 4^th 2013

Tuesday Enda Kenny, in closing the Irish Presidency, mentioned several MEPs by name, praising some, severely criticising others. A new departure, not heard before

The Commission are to spend 7 million Euros on a European Youth Event, 5000 attendees, on May 9^th ,Europe Day just before the Euro elections, to show them how wonderful it all is.

Entrance security at the event will ensure that only banners corresponding to the established criteria will be allowed into the building; what do you think that means?

Stuart Agnew reported on progress on reform of the CAP. Yes, progress of a sort, but the proposed measures will, in fact, take more land out of production! We already import a great deal of our food and the world population is growing all the time!! The revisions have been described by others as a “Dog’s breakfast”.

Caravans- ,one of 3 related reports. They did not listen, of course, to my one minute effort on Monday evening, on web site. Same problem as always. Neither the rapporteur, nor any other speaker, has any experience of towing a caravan, We are in the hands of idiots who just want to make a name for themselves, reducing road accidents in this case. Tell me, when did you last see an accident caused by a towed caravan? By the way, one of the 3 reports specified the actual size of the road worthiness documents which you might be asked to produce. Seriously, its all there, size of paper and everything.

NB the Chairrman of the committee asked for the legislative resolution of all three reports not to be put to a vote to start the legislative process, so that they can go back to committee for further work. That was adopted. So we wait and see.

Wednesday. Votes included the Financial Transaction Tax which will cripple the City of London, as intended. We were able to vote for some amendments, like the one to take Pension Funds out of the scope of the tax;- no use, out voted by 225 to 458 where UK Labour MEPs voted against. Enjoy retirement!

One of the worst features of the FTT is that unless the tax is paid the purchaser has no right to the Title. Neither has the vendor. Who has the title rights is then uncertain. A lot of pension funds change hands from one company to another!

There was also a vote on, “Timing of auctions of greenhouse gas emissions”. Here they plan to “backload” the taxes, ie not just to tax when it takes effect but to go back in time and tax previous emissions. That would be like coming back to you for the extra tax on petrol you bought a year ago when it was less! We did not vote at all, see my explanation of vote,-

“I did not vote on any of the amendments because they gave the Commission authority to exact payments either on current emissions or on earlier emissions,- backloading-, or on both. To vote either "yes" or "no" to any amendment would have endorsed the authority of the commission to extract these payments, there was no way to vote to oppose the granting of this authority.

I therefore voted "no" to the whole proposal”.

(NB. MEPs can always explain how they voted, either verbally after voting has ended, or later in writing. In any case the explanation goes on to the Parliament web site where, for controversial votes, the hordes of pressure groupers just love to see how we voted on their cause. Quite right, we are elected by the people who have the right to know how we voted.)

Double Standards You may have perhaps picked up the affair of Marine Le Pen, now leader of the National Front. She objected to two streets in Paris being taken over by Muslims praying, since France is a secular country and the roads belong to everyone. She was threatened with prosecution but relied on her Parliamentary Immunity. As a result there was a move to remove her immunity by way of a vote in Parliament. We, including myself, voted against this, but were outvoted and she lost.

A while ago an MEP in home state broke a traffic law while not on Parliament business, assaulted a policeman and was arrested. MEPs voted to preserve his immunity.They like double standards here, hence the comment in the press release;-

A UKIP spokesman said:

"We voted to keep her immunity because we believe that freedom of speech is sacrosanct.

She made her comments in pursuance of her work as an elected politician. There was no fraud or incitement to hatred involved.

There should be one rule for all, immunity should not be lifted just because you don't like the MEP's politics."

The Labour Party was accused of "craven dishonesty" for voting against a UKIP amendment in the European Parliament today to return unspent money to national budgets.

UKIP MEP William Dartmouth placed two amendments to a Motion for Resolution on the EU 2014-20120 Budget (MFF)

It called for "unspent money at the end of each year cannot be transferred to the following year but must be returned to national budgets;"

UKIP MEPs as well as the Tories voted in favour of the amendment,

Labour and LibDem MEPs voted to reject it.

Also a vote today on the state of democracy in Hungary. It is alleged that the government is ultra right wing and needs “correction”, with lots of emails contradicting this view. Interestingly this report was very divided with the final vote being like the amendments, 370 in favour, 249 against. It is usually much more one-sided.

Thursday is usually very low key, except today, main vote on the Snowden whistle blower and USA surveillance systems. Plenty of hot under the collar stuff. Much condemnation of the US but support too. Vote of 483- 98 in favour of opposing the US.

More to our point was the Duff (MEP Eastern) report on the Euro elections of 2014. Open primaries suggested to establish candidates, (not supported), plenty of support for further items not to our liking. All of which may overwhelm our own decision taken by conference vote a year ago, not to support pan-European parties. This will come, be sure of it.

Finally, a report on an Increase in duties on Norwegian agricultural products. Mixed support for amendments but report passed. They do not like Norway, anyone like to suggest why?

Derek Clark MEP Strasbourg 4^th July 2013