Strasbourg Commentary
Plenary Session Jan 13th
– 16th 2013
Tuesday Carbon Capture and
Storage. This illustrates my original suspicion about global warming
and all that. They mean Carbon Dioxide, so why not say so. If I write
letters to the paper and mis-use the apostrophe, for example, the
roof falls in.
Why? Language is only for
communication. If you are in a strange town and want a cup of tea in
the afternoon and see a notice, “Teas’s” do you scream and run
away. No, if you enter therein in you will be served a pot of tea and
a sticky bun, if you are lucky. You will not be offered a pair of
lady’s corsets. The grotesque notice has fulfilled its one and only
function, correct information. But to use carbon when you mean carbon
dioxide is wrong, it means lumps of black charcoal flying about! Why
can’t these amateur scientists get it right?
Plenty of worker’s Rights this time,
and dealing with plastic waste. Got into trouble in the UKIP MEP’s
meeting on this one. Got told that lots of plastic bags, and so on,
are biodegradable these days, that’s the way to go. All OK until I
pointed out that if you degrade a kilogram of plastic you will still
have a kilogram of something else, since you can not destroy matter.
Basic Rule. Not appreciated, got called a scientist!! Code for
,“don’t know what I’m talking about”, when in fact I do!!
We press on.
Wednesday You will recall the
Ashley Fox attempt to curtail Strasbourg meetings, expensive and all
that. He is right, But…
Latest plan is to reduce each week of
four days to three and this is to be put to the Conference of
Presidents!. Rubbish. I’m all in favour of deleting Strasbourg. Its
expensive to take all the paper there and bring it back again, plus
our assistants and so on. But reducing to 3 days in a week not 4 will
still mean the same cost of an airline ticket and the same cost of
transferring the paper work each week. In fact it will cost more per
day if only 3, not 4, days. Will it save a day’s expenses for all
of us. Well, because it is so difficult to get there business does
not start until 5.00pm on the Monday, and Thursday pm is a waste of
time (that’s why I have time now to do this). So we actually do two
full days and two halves. This plan would mean one full day and two
halves, unless we started at 9.00 am on the Monday, which means an
overnight flight and hotel stay Sunday night. No money saved there.
Ah well!
Other tit-bits today included Honey.
Got a note on my door, “Pollen is not an ingredient of honey”
Gee, did not know that!. They are getting all worked up about the
possibility of pollen from GM crops getting into the honey. Got into
more trouble in the vote meeting! What with that and “Wildlife
Crime” today…
Thursday We appointed a new
member of the European Central Bank today, a Mrs Sabine
Lautenslschlager. She had never worked as a banker, only in banking
regulatory systems So that’s alright then.
Votes also on “EU citizenship for
sale”. Voting figures indicate that this is perfectly OK but they
do like the idea of Iceland being encouraged to join the EU. Suffice
it to say that this is an Icelandic Government promotion, The
Icelanders do not go along with it; they have too much fish to lose!
Go to Iceland. Just three natural resources; fish, the lakes of
melted ice, which provide hydro-electric power, and the hot springs
which provide all the central heating and hot water. That’s it, yet
the shops are full of all the goods you would expect. They all work
very hard!
Notice that Lazslo Andor, Employment
Commissioner, actually responded to my comment about him in his
summing up. That’s something I suppose. I spoke to him as he left
when he repeated that he had been mis-quoted by the ‘Mail’. I can
hardly believe that!. However, I took him at his word and suggested
that he, “Joins the club”.
The speaker after me was Andrew Brons
who also mis-quoted me, as well as mis-quoting Nigel. I wanted to
challenge him by using the blue card but they have just ruled it out
of order for any one on the list of speakers to do that. Never mind,
not really bothered about the BNP.
The “Homeless Strategy” passed but
with so many defeated amendments (unusual) that I do not know what it
boils down to. To be honest, did not know that anyway.
On my way home.
Derek Clark MEP
Strasbourg 16th Jan 2014
Strasbourg Commentary (Part 2)
Plenary session 13th –
16th 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.
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
16th Jan 2014
