Strasbourg Commentary
Plenary session 9th -
12th 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 12th D ec 2013
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