Brussels Commentary Employment Committee Sept 25th/26th 2013

Brussels Commentary Employment Committee Sept 25^th/26^th 2013

Two days dominated by voting on Wednesday, following debates on Tuesday.

These included ,”Implementing Council Directive...equal treatment in employment and occupation”. Remarkably this failed but only because of a disagreement. Any report is written by the rapporteur with cooperation from “shadow rapporteurs”. These are from political groups other than that of the main rapporteur. In this case the Socialists announced that they were withdrawing their support for this report because they claimed a lack of transparency and that the rapporteur had gone back on a previous agreement. It will now go to the Commission to be written, not a good idea.

However, this illustrates how this place works. Deals are done behind closed doors to ensure that reports go through, entailing “horse trading”. In this case the negotiations fell though. The actual value of the report does not seem to matter too much.

“Rule 81 of Parliament’s rules of Procedure on Consent Practices” was adopted, so now the EC is to be allowed to alter the terms of any report.

“Reindustrialisation of Europe to promote competitiveness...” was adopted by 33 -3. Fine ? It will cost 30 billion Euros for reconstruction. Who will find a large wedge of that?

To go with the previous item there was,”Towards a strong... European Car Industry”. Adopted by 34 -3, with no estimate of costs.

Then came,” Conditions of entry of third country nationals for research, pupil exchange, training (paid and unpaid) voluntary service and au pairing”. Adopted by 30 – 8 votes, leading to a two tier immigration policy, with the UK government powerless. (Third country means non-EU).

“National Roma Inclusion Strategies”, was adopted by 33 – 3, For future impact, but note the term, “Inclusion”.

Last item was a debate on an, “Integrated parcel delivery market....growth of e-commerce in the EU” . So having wrecked our Royal Mail system they will now work on commercial delivery firms. Apparently they have problems with cross border deliveries so now they think only of rules imposed from above. No chance of letting these firms sort it out themselves!

Now the parcel delivery report is being written by a socialist, Jutta Steinruck. She is also doing, “Effective labour inspections...improve working conditions, clamp down on illegals”. Like you I can see the outcome, -a mass of rules and regs, yet more Red Tape.

In a previous commentary I mentioned I had been subjected to a “Blue Card” question after speaking in the House. This was to ask me, “What was Red Tape?”. The questioner was none other than Ms Steinruck and here she is, proposing yet more of it!

By the way. All of the “No” vote figures quoted above includes me in every case.

Derek Clark MEP Brussels 26^th Sept 2013   

Strasbourg Commentary Plenary Session Sept 9th – 12th 2013

Strasbourg Commentary Plenary Session Sept 9^th – 12^th 2013

Nice to back!! – especially as little changes!

Actually, it does. I take you have seen newspapers comments on Barroso’s speech on the “State of the UKIP”, delivered on Wednesday. Take his comments about us as you like but I do not think he meant to compliment us. Perhaps he was trying to alert other UK parties to our threat, after all, people like him do not like to change tack to take on a different foe. However, I also hope you have picked up Nigel’s comments, especially his response to the really repulsive Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the Lib-Dems.

Tuesday. Votes included report on “Right of access to lawyer in criminal cases etc” . Passed by 661 – 29. This simply illustrates how far behind they are. We take legal representation in court for the accused as a matter of course, but for much of the EU it is a step into the unknown. And they say we have to listen to them, ECHR and so on!!

Herewith my speech to the house on Europe’s Young Jobless, also on video via the link included.

High youth unemployment in the euro straightjacket - Derek Clark MEP

Speech delivered in the Parliament – Tuesday 10^th September 2013

http://www.derekclarkmep.org.uk/my-videos/

Thank you Madame President. From Britain, from the House of Lords, our upper chamber, I have received a note today. They are launching an enquiry into the proposals to help Europe’s young jobless. They note that the EU is going to spend 8 billion euros over the next 6 years and they want to know if that will add any value to these proposals.

They note also that there is a brain drain in Europe and what are we going to do about it with young people without a job leaving in such great numbers for work elsewhere. We all know that Spain has got some 50% youth unemployed. 280,000 young people left Spain alone last year to seek their fortunes either in the rest of Europe or in South America.

It’s no coincidence that Spain, together with several other European countries, is struggling. Ireland, Portugal, Greece and others, what have they in common,- the Euro, a straightjacket which is robbing them of their economy. No wonder they are in trouble, no wonder they have high youth unemployment. Let them sort out their own salvation with their own former currencies restored.

This may lead to low wage economies, but then you have to ask the question – do you want a low paid job or no job at all?

Wednesday Votes on Biofuels. Surprisingly a lot of amendments tabled by the Environment committee were defeated but do not be fooled. They are in favour of turning over land for biofuel production. That may be OK in the UK, up to a point, but in the third world of starving millions it is criminal. Actually, the vote to send this to be framed in legislation was not taken, it was decided to refer it back to committee, as was the whole report on assessing the effect of projects on the environment. This included a passage on Shale gas, did someone get cold feet?

Having spoken on Youth Unemployment on Tuesday evening (video on my website) I was depressed to see two reports on Youth employment, full of platitudes and wishful thinking, being passed, one by 612 – 55, the other by 592-81. Paul Nuttall also spoke on this, earlier on Tuesday evening, see UKIP MEPs website.

Thursday Two reports of deadly menace to the UK were adopted today. Both were on banking, ‘European Banking Authority and supervision of credit institutions”, and, ” Specific tasks for the European Central Bank .. supervision of credit institutions” . Our banks will be under the supervision, i.e. control, of the ECB. These reports passed by 556 – 54 and by 559 – 62. What made this worse was that the president, Martin Schultz, gave a long winded introduction to these reports which was tantamount to promoting them; “EU banking is good for you”. A but rich seeing that they can’t get the Court of Auditors to sign off the EU books,- 16 years now!!

This “Parliament?” also adopted a couple of reports on EU armed services, not that they actually called it that. One was on EU military structures, and talks of defence spending, streamlining an EU Army, “Sharing” etc. etc.

I was more alarmed by the second report, ”Maritime dimension of common security….” They want a maritime force to protect resource extraction… EU cooperation to deal with threats… maritime presence in the Black Sea!!.... if war breaks out in the Caucuses EU needs to mobilise…. Galileo for military use….. create a EU coast guard…. Wants to support an EU Navy….and wants to share overseas bases. Gibraltar is overseas!!!

How many more times do we have to deal with the Spanish Navy!??

As I said, nice to be back but keep an eye out for an extra. I did a bit of TV for our in-house cameras on Wednesday. All about the Syrian crisis, and our response to the call for military action. It should soon appear on the UKIPMEPs website, when it does I will send a link to an article published the following day, a letter from president Putin.

Derek Clark MEP Strasbourg Sept 12^th 2013

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