Strasbourg Commentary Plenary session 9th - 12th Dec 2013

Strasbourg Commentary Plenary session 9^th - 12^th Dec 2013

Tuesday I mentioned Western Sahara in my last Brussels Commentary and today there was the vote on the EU-Morocco fishing agreement. I regret to tell you that it was adopted by 310 – 204 votes. Disgraceful, these MEPs are either ignorant or do not care. There is one hope from an unlikely quarter. The Commissioner ‘phoned up our assistant dealing with this and asked for our support for Western Sahara. We’ll have to see what might come of that.

We were also closely involved in further fishing votes, deep sea fishing in the North Atlantic. We have been heavily lobbied over this from those wishing to protect the sea bed from aggressive trawling which scars the bottom and destroys rare species. If you read one account of our vote you might get the impression that we did not care for we voted against a certain amendment which gave protection. But that was only two years protection and what happens then is another matter, we wanted long term protection.

The Estrela Report may come up in the UK press. Ms Estrela wanted comprehensive protection against all kinds of things, including Female Genital Mutilation. Quite horrible, as we all agree. Problem, it was all tied up with so many side issues and conditions that we abstained all through. After all, member states, ie, individual countries, should be putting their own house in order. At the end, since getting insufficient support, Ms Estrela withdrew her name from the report. This was an “Own Initiative” report, ie an MEP’s own idea and it cannot therefore be legislative, so no rules or regs can emerge. What does happen to Own Initiative reports is that the Commission keep an eye and if one looks promising they will sometimes take it up and make a legislative report of it.

Later on I spoke to the Globalisation Adjustment Fund. That’s awarding lots of your money to help workers made redundant when firms close, often when a firm moves abroad because it can’t compete any more due to the crazy EU Rules and Regs it has to obey. See on this link http://www.ukipmeps.org/articles_770_Company-after-company-closing-under-the-weight-of-EU-Regulation.html

We had the EFD group Christmas Dinner that evening in a Strasbourg restaurant and the original schedule showed me speaking at about 6.30 pm,- OK. But the time slipped, as always, and I got to my feet at about 8.45pm!! Raced to dinner, got there just after 9.00. They kept it hot for me, and for Jane who was with me on this visit, but who was lucky not to have been thrown out of the Parliament visitor gallery. She clapped my effort, - strictly forbidden!

Speaking late in the evening is not popular because the session goes on to midnight and slippage always occurs. I once finished a one minute speech at two minutes to midnight!

Wednesday Votes for no less than 5 new members of the Court of Auditors. At least the names were published this time. Any use asking if the new lot will see that the books are properly audited next year?

Pre accession assistance was approved. That means candidate countries being awarded vast sums of (your) money to sweeten them up and help to firm up their public opinion. The Globalisation Adjustment Fund to which I spoke on Tuesday evening came to vote. Guess how that turned out. That’s right, adopted, by 543 to 126,- I had really made an impact!

Most votes today were of just one page of amendments, or less, but one on, “Human Rights in the World”, ran to 3 pages. Priorities!

Much more sinister was the Cutas report on, “Mandatory automatic exchange of information in the field of taxation”. Adopted by 360 – 59, and notice the word, “mandatory”.

Thursday Votes included ,”Progress on Roma integration strategies”. This passed but the last amendment, “Whereas the Roma share responsibility for their current dire situation with the wider society, and whereas Roma communities need to tackle the wrongs and problems within their communities”, was defeated by 293- 309.

Then we voted on the Ukraine, which had been an item at the Vilnius summit recently. Our, ie EFD amendment, not welcoming Ukrainian membership was defeated by 60 to 464 votes. Further votes in favour of Ukrainian membership were adopted, including visa free travel. The whole report favoured Ukrainian membership and, at the conclusion, the leading Lib-Dem member present welcomed the result and displayed a Ukrainian flag, the signal for the whole of the Lib-Dems present, plus some others, to stand up and flourish Ukrainian flags. Such displays are forbidden in the House. Guess who gets away with it and who got the knuckles well and truly rapped a couple of years ago for the same thing!

A “Progress report on Albania” report was not supported, this time.

A Happy Christmas to all my readers.

Derek Clark MEP Strasbourg 12^th D ec 2013

Brussels Commentary Employment Committee 25th - 26th Nov 2013

Brussels Commentary Employment Committee 

During a previous visit to Strasbourg I made a speech in which I deplored the proliferation of "red tape" which hampers small businesses in particular, costing them money and causing closures. I pointed out that SMEs between them employed half the work force and that this therefore raised the unemployment figures.

On that occasion I took the opportunity to remind MEPs that none other than Barroso had mentioned in the House a year or two before, "Red tape was strangling SME's". Following my speech I was "blue-carded", that is, an MEP raised a blue card to demand I answer a question. This turned out to be a query as to what was Red-Tape! I informed the lady that it was the mass of petty instructions and requirements imposed on businesses and which fell more heavily on the SME's because they had few resources to cope with it.

I was amused to realise some while later that this MEP is now serving on the Employment Committee, whose lady president recently tabled a report to reduce the amount of 'Red Tape', so as to benefit small businesses.

I therefore had to keep a close watch on my tongue today. The very MEP who had queried me on the re-tape issue months ago is herself today the rapporteur for 2 reports;-

1) "Effective labour inspections as a strategy to improve working conditions in Europe".

2) "An integrated parcel delivery market for the growth of e-commerce in the EU"

"Inspections" conjures up an image of a whole regiment of inspectors, just like a collection of Traffic Wardens. As for a delivery market to cater for developing e-commerce I would think that the suppliers would have their delivery systems already sorted. Certainly my new hedge trimmer, ordered on line, turned up on time a year ago. They took it away two weeks later when I expressed dissatisfaction, and then returned it again on time. So what's the problem?

I leave to you to consider the red-tape possibilities inherent in these two reports. Suffice it to say that these people just do not listen, they all think that their new set of rules must go through, it's the others we can do without.

By the way, the first of these two reports, all 15 pages of amendments to labour inspections, was adopted by 22 to 15, that's close by EU standards. The second report on parcel delivery passed by 31 - 4 votes, that's more like it, and guess who was one of the 4 against.

I did something a little unusual today. we often get multiple emails about some issue or another. These are often identical having been composed by some kind of central body. Those for the CFP reform ran to 1500. Could not answer all of them so sent a specimen reply.

Today was different. Some 20 identical emails about the disaster about to be inflicted on Western Sahara. This very much third world country is where the Sahara meets the sea. It is poor with hardly any rainfall. They have but two resources, the phosphate mines (in that climate!) and fish. Twice now the EU has made available fishing licences for European fleets to fish these waters but these vessels out-class the locals, fishing as much in a day as the more primitive local boats get in a month.

Not only does this put the locals out of business in a land with no benefit system, these rapacious European fleets strip the waters clean, so the licences are only made out for 5 years. Then, renewed as the stocks recover.

Worse still, in the world of UN guaranteed self-determination Western Sahara does not have its own government. It was once a Spanish colony, given up when Spain joined the EU, now it is run by Morocco, which has turned it into a police state. About half the Sahrawis have fled to Algeria which allowed them to settle in refugee camps, together with their Government in Exile, the Polisario.

Why raise this now? Because the EU is on the point of agreeing an EU-Morocco fishing agreement. An agreement with Morocco which has done more to terrorise and subjugate the people of Western Sahara than any other country!

I have now promised my correspondents to write to the Foreign Office, hoping to get some kind of helpful and civilised answer.

Derek Clark MEP Brussels Nov 26th 2013

Strasbourg Commentary 39 Plenary Session 18 – 21 Nov 2013

Strasbourg Commentary 39 Plenary Session 18 – 21 Nov 2013

Tuesday Voting The Plenkovic report on yet another Globalisation Adjustment Fund, to award yet more of your money to failed companies who can’t keep up, does not sound very exciting. But, this was for Spanish building firms in Valencia!!

Ever since I became an MEP I have received emails from desperate people who have fallen for the, “Retirement home in the Sun” scam. They have been to Spain on holiday, attend nice little UK gatherings where a smooth talker persuades them to invest. This means selling up in Britain using the cash to fund their home, only to find, in many cases, that it does not exist. Or, it does, but the local developer has had building permission for the complex from the Regional Council only to be overturned by the National Government. The bulldozers then move in and flatten their home; money gone. One famous case involved a time-share apartment of umpteen flats all taken by hundreds of North Europeans for their 2 weeks in the sun. Bulldozed like the rest, with no recompense.

Problem is, for UK buyers especially, they think that, as we are all in the EU now, all laws and so on are same everywhere, No they are not. Spanish conveyancing has always been tortuous and local solicitors are no help. Had lunch with Northampton Solicitors a few months ago and I asked them how they would go about dealing with acquiring Spanish property. “Not with a barge pole” was the reply.

Cyprus is no better. There they get the purchaser to sign the papers to deposit all the money required in a certain bank. They then have to appoint a lawyer to act for them to pay out the monthly in instalments,- before the keys are handed over!. No signature = no home = no money back. The only bank which will offer a Mortgage is the Alpha Panetti Bank. The only acceptable go-between lawyer is called Panetti!. I spent all afternoon with Cypriot lawyers and a UK lawyer trying to sort this out!!

Wednesday Votes included “Gender £balance …Directors Companies listed on stock Exchange” All our amendments were voted down. Then came the Fox-Hafner report on, “Location of the EU’s Parliament seats.”

Most of us wish to get rid of this Brussels/ Strasbourg monthly circus. To be clear it does not affect me too much, ditto others. I go the Brussels and come home, I go to Strasbourg and come home (in an hour or so, if you’ll let me!). But most of the Parliamentary Assistants live in Brussels, so they go to & fro, plus paperwork. Outside my door now is a cabin trunk into which I can put anything I like, John ditto. Sometime tomorrow it will be collected, join the other 745 other MEP trunks, be loaded onto trucks and off to Brussels. There to be unloaded and put outside my office. Friday prior to next Strasbourg all collected in Brussels again and off to Strasbourg, all of them. I put hardly anything in mine!!

The permanent staff of Parliament move between the two places, plus their paperwork. As do the Commission staff. And the Council staff. And a lot of the admin takes place in the Third seat of Parliament, Luxembourg. That’s where all our monies are administered, so any query…..

You would think that a re-arrangement would be a simple matter. Wrong! Strasbourg sittings are a matter of the Law, in that it is in the Treaties. At the moment there is work going on to amend the treaties, which is fraught with complexity and personalities. It will be ages before anything is done about the issue of where we debate and vote. And Cameron thinks he can re-negotiate our terms of membership within the Treaties!!!

My little one minute on Creutzman, “Competiveness etc” is on the website. My rough notes here below. I had the choice of speaking to this or to “Social Change and innovation”. Although the latter was more within my brief as employment spokesman I chose Creutzman as it was more interesting!. Actually, I had been approached by the Health Foods people mentioned in my opening line and promised them I would speak to this. No, I don’t normally respond to lobbyists because they are usually big companies after a free boost for their product. That usually takes the form of getting us to promote new legislation to favour them. Inevitably that works against the small guys, hence my support of the Small & Medium Enterprises”.

Thursday Creutzman was voted on today. Guess what, it was voted down, by 554 to 27 votes. Ah well. The point is, we never give up, they are going to hear what the only grown up democracy in Europe has to say. In which respect go to UKIP MEPs website and listen to a number of speeches of this last week from Paul Nuttall, Gerard Batten and Stuart Agnew, Enjoy!!.

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

Entitled - EU shutting out small health food enterprises - UKIP MEP Derek Clark

Strasbourg Commentary (Part 2) Plenary session 13^th – 16^th Jan 2014

The outstanding event of the week was the appearance of the Greek Premier, Mr Samaras

His 40 minute presentation was to re-assure everyone that all in the Greek garden was lovely. Greece was now breaking even on the budget, that the current balance was OK. Yes, there was the outstanding Debt, he did not say how much!!, but they could now start paying back. They were on an even keel and there was social stability. He was grateful for the Solidarity shown by all the EU member states.

Then the round of lead speakers began.

Daul (EPP President) said Greek farmers would do better if they were not saddled with 10% on borrowing. They ought to reduce that, and that was the kind of Solidarity we need, MR FARAGE!

Swaobada Socialist) the demands of the Troika were not acceptable. It was destroying the social network in Greece., must be phased out. On a UK tack he complained that Cameron suppresses publication of benefit figures until after the Euro Elections.

Verhofstadt (ALDE) FARAGE wants to block worker movement when it is only 2.8% of working population. This is far too low, we want more movement, not less.

Harms (Greens) A mistake to say that reforms are working. The people do not buy into the systems. Public services are poor, Greece is in Depression, not recession. Greek jobs are being done in Brussels. Greece has foreign companies exploiting their resources.

Callanan (ECR) Samaras painted a nice picture but it is misleading.

Zimmer (NGL) It’s a social disaster in Greece with very high unemployment. There is a lot of illegitimate debt, ie conversion of private debt into Government debt.

So, not exactly a rosy Greek picture after all. You will have seen Nigel’s piece already, if not on this link. http://www.ukipmeps.org/articles_779_Farage-A-Battle-of-National-Democracy-vs-EU-State-Bureaucracy.html and I have never seen Nigel attacked by speakers before he got up to speak, still less two of them.

Personally I have been wrong on one count. I thought that they would all rally round Greece with the Euro elections in May so as to keep up the pretence of all being well, but not this week. Perhaps they will find some magic in April.

Derek Clark MEP 16^th Jan 2014

Derek Clark MEP Strasbourg 21^st Nov 2013.

Brussels Commentary 31 Employment Committee 5th Nov 2013

Brussels Commentary 31 Employment Committee 5th Nov 2013

This was just one afternoon and I do not always attend such short sessions, it takes me away from the demands of the office for a day and it costs the taxpayer just as much as a two day visit. However, I went on this occasion because I had been invited to dinner that same evening by the NFU. They were on a group visit the following day and had invited me because of the support I have been giving them. I have made a good number of visits to poultry farms, ploughed fields, milking parlours and so on. More usefully I have been to meetings to find out how elements of the revised Farm Support Scheme operates with a view to voting in their favour as and when it arises.

All useful time spent and hence their invitation which I accepted, of course, as a courtesy. Actually, I nearly missed out. The Employment meeting that afternoon was dominated by a voting session which went on for just over one and half hours and meant that I was rather late to dinner. The taxis in Brussels are hopeless.

In the votes we had, "Social dimension of the economic and monetary Union". Over 100 amendments and I am proud to tell you that my vote against stood on its own, to 41 in favour!.

On measures to "Facilitate rights involved re freedom of movement of workers", I had support! After 200 amendments it passed by 41 to 2. But the follow up vote, nominating a team to negotiate with Council (they expect problems!), came out as 40 in favour to 1 against. I think I have just been eliminated from several Christmas card lists.

I was one of 2 to vote against the last measure, "Regulation of the Globalisation Adjustment Fund". Not surprised, this is spending wads of money to help workers when a firm re-locates or otherwise closes because EU companies are so inefficient that they can't compete on the world stage. One of the latest closures was the Danish firm that builds these monstrous wind turbines. So now, when you see one being put up, you know it's not even keeping Europeans in work.

The first of these votes revealed some of the "smoke and mirrors" which we know is prevalent. The vote lists contained "Compromises", quite a common feature in which the rapporteur talks to "shadow rapporteurs" and to groups before the vote. You realise that these are popular with other MEPs because it includes amendments which might otherwise not stand up but which go through because it is rare for a compromise to be voted down. It also saves time in voting for the amendments it includes are not then taken. In this case three amendments were listed to vote before a compromise but which, if passed would cause the compromise to fall. They were passed, consternation all round.

The committee president ruled that this was so but complained. These compromises are always put together by a number of political groups, so they pass because of that wide support. On this occasion the president said that she was surprised that she had not been informed before hand of a certain group's change of mind!!

So if you were to see my committee voting you will not be surprised to see the rapidity with which the result is declared, it's all cut and dried before hand, she has no need to look up to see the size of "fors" and "against". It's called democracy, EU style.

Keep up the good work!!

Derek Clark MEP Brussels 6th Nov 2013

Strasbourg Commentary Plenary Session Oct 21st - 24th 2013

Strasbourg Commentary Plenary Session Oct 21^st - 24th 2013

Tuesday - The vote on In vitro devices included over 250 amendments. The whole thing is nonsense with simple stuff like sticking plaster being mixed up with implants which only a surgeon would use. See my speech about this where one minute was insufficient to cover the topic properly http://www.ukipmeps.org/articles_732_Medical-Devices-Its-all-about-the-big-companies.html

The report was approved by 525 to 25 votes but the legislative resolution was returned to committee for further work. Likewise the following vote on Medical Devices which had over 300 amendments.

The Estrela report on “Sexual and reproductive health and rights” was very contentious so the temperature rose considerably when a motion to postpone it passed by 351 to 319. Rapporteur most upset and continued complaining loudly in the lift lobby.

Apparently Education needs “Re-thinking”, well a vote of 556 to 105 against says so.

Wednesday - The Cadec report on the Fisheries Fund had attracted over 600 amendments, many of which were taken as one block vote, which passed in spite of our “No”! The report was adopted but legislation was postponed. Good, since it adopted provision for the subsidising of new vessels. The pictures circulated are of many subsidised new boats, such as British fishermen can only dream of, but all done with their money!

Do not be surprised to hear that the findings of the UN Climate Change Conference were well received, adopted by 524 to 120 votes.

Thursday - Included the Ulmer report on the Dangers of Ionising Radiation. All very well but this lot know nothing. When this came to the Employment Committee several different permitted levels of exposure were mooted, depending on the body part exposed, most of which ignored the UN recommendations, settling on several levels well above UN guidelines. Now we had this report of 150 amendments which was, of course, adopted, 455 to 102.

In the Brok report on Security Policy they voted for more EU involvement in the Balkans, I thought this region had caused enough trouble over the years. They also want Britain and France to abandon their nuclear weapons, apparently, this will persuade Iran to follow suit!

Most importantly was the La Via report, adopted by 428 to 44, on the shortfall of EU funds where I can do no better than to reproduce here the Europarl Press Release,-

So, back to Wednesday for voting on the budget, as usual in Oct or Nov. Very confusing this year. Up to now we have been presented with a comprehensive list of proposed expenditure set out line by line, each line showing the purpose of payment, with comment as to whether each was an increase or a decrease. With some 30 lines per page on 10 pages it gave clear identification of over 300 items of EU expenditure and we could cast informed vote. Not so now.

I should explain that all reports are an amending exercise. At each Employment Committee I am usually presented with a pile of 4 booklets, each of about 50 A4 pages, ie 100 sides. Number one starts with the original report, the rapporteur’s comments and then amendments, continued in the remaining booklets. I do not get this before the committee starts so John Tennant does the hard bit ready for me to vote. He reads all amendments, recommends which I should support, and which not, and converts this to a voting list. This is very tedious because, whereas the amendments are listed in the books in numerical order, on the voting lists the amendments appear in random order. These voting lists are not available until the evening prior to the vote! We sit down on the morning before the votes and discuss John’s decisions. That is quick because we of UKIP vote, normally, against everything and all I have to do is to check out any “Yes” John recommends. Votes in plenary follow a similar path.

By the way, before I had my own assistant to do this I had to do it myself. So I sat in committee all day, reading each report with its amendments, as debate continued. In between making an occasional intervention I marked up the booklets and hoped to get through them all by the time the voting lists came through at about 7.30pm. I took it all to my hotel and worked through before and after dinner, transferring my markings to the voting lists. You will realise that it is impossible to vote without a marked-up voting list. I did once try to vote from the amendment booklets, absolutely impossible. In any case changes come in overnight.

For the budget this year detail was expanded on several lines for each expenditure, so that there were 8 books of over 50 sheets each, making a pile some 5 inches thick. Impossible to use in the vote situation so the Budget Committee had collapsed all these lines into about 5 blocks per page, with minimal outline, on to voting lists of 10 pages of A4. For example “Block 1” was, ‘production levies, sugar storage, production charges, surpluses, financing the general budget’, all lumped together as one vote, with about 5 or 6 more blocks on each page. We were only able to vote by recommendation of our assistants and the fact that our senior assistant had copy of all 8 books of amendments.

Hence my comments above about how the voting takes place. The budget voting lists were just like all the others, as detailed above, but with over 1000 amendments! Our senior assistant, Aurelie Laloux, worked for two solid days on the voting lists for the budget.

To make matters worse the rapporteur addressed MEPs as the budget vote was about to start. She explained that six or seven amendments had alterations for us to note. Problem, plenary vote lists are just like committee lists and, instead of taking them one at a time as we got to it, she did it all together, identified by amendment number. So it was impossible to follow instructions. Hence my “Point of Order”, as per the link below, and please note the Presidential response! http://www.ukipmeps.org/articles_741_Voting-on-unknown-alterations-to-amendments.html

Did somebody say that the EU needs to be transparent, especially when spending billions of Pounds of taxpayers money?

This video, with extra footage, and further notes, will be going out on You Tube for all the world to see!

Lastly, if you have seen Nigel’s recent speech to the House you will notice that he remarked that when the Euro Anthem was played everyone stood to “Ramrod” attention. No they did not. I was just coming back in as the anthem began so I promptly departed and waited for it to stop. This is not my Anthem, I have a perfectly good one already. In any case, it is a dreadful way to treat Beethoven’s ninth symphony.

Derek Clark MEP Strasbourg Oct 24^th 2013

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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