Once again the week
started for me with an Employment Committee meeting on Monday evening at
7.00pm. This was short notice, we are never given very much time to prepare
properly for anything. No wonder the EU is a mess.
This meeting was to vote
on two issues, "Corporate Social Responsibility", which will add to
the regulatory burden. Then, "Better Governance of the Single Market",
in which the president remarked that, "the Single Market was not an end in
itself but a means for Social Progress". So there you have it, nothing to
do with easier trade and everything to do with an enlarged and more expensive
welfare system. Our trade is pretty healthy, on the whole, so it is pretty
clear whose Social Progress is improved by the much lauded "Free Movement
of workers", and whose economy is to pay for it.
Incidentally, the
President indicated at one point that there were too many people voting, as
shown by the electronic voting machine. This has happened before, when usually
the president says that there were too many of a certain party voting. So the
machine corrects this, but most votes are taken by show of hands, without
counting, so how many of those are legitimate?
Plenary session.
Tuesday. One measure here was the "Horn of
Africa" which concentrated on the Ethiopian Piracy. Did not mention that
this has arisen because of the EU awarding fishing licences for European fleets
to raid the waters of the third world, in this case that part of the Indian
Ocean. These fleets destroy stocks of fish there, leaving the locals destitute.
In this case that drove some Ethiopians back into their old ways of piracy. Now
they are trying to resolve the issue but that does not include assisting
Ethiopians to resume their traditional fishing rights.
Wednesday Was dominated by Enda Kenny the Irish premier
addressing the house at the start of the Irish Presidency. He went on for a
considerable length of time. Nigle's response is on the web. Among the issues
voted on was fishing again. Baltic stocks and Conserving resources. They are
going to eliminate discards (at last) but in stages. That's some progress but
they will not adopt the best approach, reverting to national waters of 200
miles from the coast with the countries being responsible for what happens
there. In vain do we point out that this works for Norway Europe imports more than
half the fish it consumes.
More importantly today
saw the attempt by the EU to arrange its own Credit Ratings Agency through the
Domenici report. Godfrey had something to say about this so see his intervention
via this link,-
Suffice it to say that
we have another disaster on the horizon.
Thursday Most important was the debate and vote on EU -
Mercosur trade relations. Mercosur is an anagram for the participating
countries of South and Central America , the
abbreviations used being of the Latin names. William Dartmouth spoke to this in
the morning and his statistics are very useful in the current context of the
Cameron speech. One of the EU supporter's commonest ploys is to say that we
need to be in the EU to trade with its countries. Nonsense and I have my own
personal response, but William has provided a better one. Of the Mercosur
countries Brazil is the
strongest economically, with a GDP of around 2.48 trillion dollars, while the UK Brazil 's
exports some 37 % goes to the other Mercosur countries while the UK
But no one anywhere is suggesting
that the Mercosur countries should form a political association, to foster
trade, or anything else.
If you think about it
where else in the world is there a EU-style political union starting? Australia
merging with New Zealand. India
and Pakistan US USA
not a real United States of America
and go into political union with Canada ,
Mexico , Nicaragua , Panama
Happy New Year!
Derek Clark MEP Strasbourg
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