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Monday 30 September 2013

Brussels Commentary Employment Committee Sept 25th/26th 2013

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

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