How fares the search for an alternative home to the EPP-ED group (the largest in the parliament) for the Conservative MEPs? William Hague was in Brussels this month for talks with some possible alternative allies. The search is obviously going to be a long and tortuous one. Remember that to form a group in the European Parliament (and thus avoid sitting with Mr le Pen, Miss Mussolini and Mr Kilroy Silk among the "non attached") a minimum of 19 members from at least 5 countries is required. The main candidates now are the Polish Law and Justice party (the PIS) and the Czech ODS party. Unfortunate acronyms apart, even these two options are problematic. The PIS is opposed to CAP reform and the ODS can't make up their minds this side of their election in the spring, and may not jump ship from the EPP then. Neither party can be counted on not to join up with the EPP in due course, leaving the Conservatives in the lurch.

 

The rest of William Hague's list is even more eccentric. He has met Hans Blokland, the sole MEP from the Dutch anti-EU constitution party, the Christen Unie - who advised him to stay with the big guns of the EPP. Another meeting was with Mrs Cathy Sinnott, an Irish free spirit whose views have rarely been known to coincide with common sense. We are really wasting our time talking to these people. David Cameron and his team should be visiting Berlin, Paris and Rome. His absence contrasts with his sedulous wooing of the Americans, but what will he say to George Bush later this year if the President asks him what he is doing to get the Germans or the French on side?

 

The most important issue we dealt with this month was the services directive. The hero of the hour was a Conservative MEP, Malcolm Harbour from the West Midlands. Malcolm was in charge of the directive on behalf of the whole EPP-ED group which meant that Conservatives had a major influence over the outcome.

 

The directive is designed to create for services the same kind of common market that exists for goods. Nearly 70 per cent of the EU working population is involved in the services sector, which represents 55 per cent of the EU's GDP, but at present services account for only 20 per cent of trade between Member States. We have endured almost 50 years of Member States' protectionism and restrictive practices, from complicated bureaucratic hurdles and time delays to financial penalties and obscure qualification requirements.

 

However, the breathtaking move to complete the common market was too much for hard-line trade unionists, who feared an influx of cheap labour into high wage, highly protected labour markets such as exist in France, Belgium and Germany. There was a big demonstration (which few MEPs saw since the French police kept the demonstrators out of rock-throwing range of the Parliament).The demonstrators were mainly French public sector workers who seem incapable of understanding that services in the private sector offer  the best hope of new jobs. Even as they marched France Telecom announced 17,000 redundancies. We already have a very open labour market in the UK and a well-developed service sector, so the directive gives British business new opportunities. But the issue nevertheless divides the British Left: the government is in favour of the directive but the UK trade union dinosaurs who turned     up in Strasbourg were against, so Labour MEPs had a difficult session. The Eastern Europeans were predictably in favour of the directive.

 

In the end both sides claimed victory but if you look at the final text, (which only represents the Parliament's first reading) those who want an open market appear at this stage to be winning. There had been fears that MEPs would write into the draft all sorts of ways in which Member States could quietly manipulate protectionist barriers back into place. In fact the Parliament's version specifically bans practices that restrict freedom to provide services across borders and Member States can now only act to protect public policy and public security interests as well as enforcing health and safety rules. These provisos may well lead to a gold mine for lawyers but apart from them a service provider, once established in a Member State, will be free to "exercise his activity" there. There is still another round of consultations to go before the draft can become law. At least we have kept the show on the road when the   Socialists originally wanted to sabotage the whole thing.

 

The British Retail Consortium scored "nul points" for accuracy this month. They put out a press release urging MEPs to "save the British pint" after the "threat of new legislation that will see us buy our milk in litres rather than the traditional measures of pints customers are happy with". But anyone who looked at the draft law before us could see that the whole point of it was deregulation. Whereas old style EU law had specified certain quantities in which pre-packaged goods must be sold, the draft law sweeps all this away in favour of a free for all. It said "Nominal quantities will not be subject to regulation at Community or national level, and it should be possible to place pre-packed goods on the market in any nominal quantity".

 

MEPs did amend the Commission's streamlined and simple draft law by cluttering it up with new annexes to "save" various quantities, including the pint, - all, in my view, unnecessary. When I checked with the web sites of UK supermarkets I found that they sell milk in litres, half litres, pints and half pints. So saving the pint is a matter of consumer choice.

 

Two items of good news: MEPs have successfully amended the directive designed to protect workers from exposure to optical radiation ("the sunshine directive") so that it will cover only artificial sources of optical radiation and not sunlight. Building workers, and others, won't need to cover up at the behest of Brussels (although they should if they want to avoid skin cancer). Meanwhile any chickens that survive bird flu are in for a better time, since MEPs voted for lower stocking densities, better lighting and ventilation, and unannounced spot checks of the new rules.

 

Old national attitudes die hard. "Ah, good news!" said my Polish MEP neighbour, reading The Times headline over my shoulder. It read "German recovery falters".