The European Parliament in February 2007

Half way through their 5-year mandate, MEPs have the option of changing all internal office holders, from the President to the   policy coordinators of the Groups. This was the scene in January. The Presidency was easily won by Hans Gerd Poettering, a German Christian Democrat and long serving MEP. Trouble then centred on the committee chairmanships where, in our political group, there was a revolt of the Eastern European MEPs, who objected to the Germans keeping certain plum posts. In the end the Easterners won: a distinguished Pole displaced a German as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a Czech doctor took on the Environment Committee. We did well too: we took the chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee for Neil Parish (now also parliamentary candidate for Tiverton) and Conservative MEPs were   elected to 7 policy co-ordinatorships in the EPP-ED group. Given that our party nationally remains committed to seeking an alternative home to the EPP, these elections were a compliment by our colleagues to our hard work.

 

In the February debate inaugurating his Presidency Poettering gave strong support to the draft Constitution and he was echoed by Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, who said the Constitution was “crucial for the effectiveness of an EU of 27 Member States”. The next date for your diary is 25 March. This is the 50^th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, and the Germans – who hold the EU Presidency – hope to get agreement then on a “Declaration on the Future of Europe”. More to the point in our immediate working lives, Poettering wants to reform the Parliament so that more MEPs are present for debates and votes. I don’t know how he is going to do this apart from ripping out the TV relay from the chamber to MEPs’ offices or perhaps super-gluing French MEPs to their seats in the Chamber. They are notoriously poor attenders and the temptation for them to return to Paris, or wherever they are Mayor, will get worse when the new high-speed train between Paris and Strasbourg starts in June.

 

The Commission set out its work programme for 2007 this month. It contains all the old favourite priorities: prosperity, solidarity, security and freedom. Beneath this bland umbrella the Commission wants to initiate action on jobs, energy policy (where the Member States in fact have the whip hand), climate change and migration management (where again the Commission will be lucky if the Member States play ball). The work programme is fairly thin on new legislation except on climate change and financial services; ten laws are repealed.

 

All this passed in a bit of a blur for me because I was much preoccupied in guiding my report on the first reading of the waste framework directive through to the vote. The debate took place on Monday evening of the session and the vote at midday on Tuesday, which meant that I spent much of the night drawing up the detailed whip for the EPP-ED group to follow. The report was adopted by 641 votes to 21.

 

It is a highly important, rather technical measure, which will set the framework for waste management in the EU for the next 30 years or so. It defines key parts of the waste process – for example when a waste ceases to be a waste, and when energy from waste plants can be defined as a “recovery” rather than “disposal “operations. These things can kill a dinner party conversation stone dead at 20 paces (I know; I’ve tried) but are vital to how we live and to a very important industry.

 

MEPs adopted amendments that made the text more user friendly. In particular we

·        Included a target for stabilising the production of waste by 2012, putting our baseline at 2008 levels. We have to do something: EU researchers predict an increase of 42.5% in the generation of municipal waste by 2020 compared to 1995 levels

·        Included a target for Member States to reuse or recycle at least 50% of municipal waste and at least 70 % of industrial, manufacturing and construction and demolition waste by 2020

·        Set out a clear 5 stage waste hierarchy - starting from prevention, reuse, recycling, recovery and ending with landfill – to be used as the general rule in waste management, with exceptions subject to life cycle analysis

·        Accepted the principle that energy-from-waste plants can qualify as   “recovery” operations, although in the vote MEPs ducked the opportunity to specify what energy efficiency criteria they would have to meet.

What will all this mean at home? If agreed (we have another reading to go) it would provide an incentive to those county authorities planning incinerators to ensure that they are the most energy efficient possible. It would also clear up, for example, the confusion surrounding compost production. If the Commission acts as we ask it will produce EU wide standards for compost to be produced and traded as a product rather than languishing as a “waste”. Currently because compost is classed as a waste product it is difficult to sell and often ends up in landfills.

 

UKIP are having a difficult time at home and abroad: this month we caught them voting against a proposal to tighten the law against drift nets – which kill dolphins and porpoises. Most of the time on new legislation they vote against or abstain, a monotonously negative diet, which hardly serves British interests. We also noted Labour MEPs voting to condemn the UK’s alliance with the US in the war on terror. In a vote this month MEPs implied that the UK should be unable to deport non-UK citizens and would be required to provide diplomatic help to UK residents who trained in the terrorist camps in Afghanistan. We opposed the motion

 

At a concert this month I met an elderly man who expressed great interest and support for the kind of practical cooperation the European Parliament expresses. He was a survivor of the “Kinder-Transport” – the Jewish children sent to England in 1938-9 by their parents to escape Nazi persecution. He had reached England at the age of 6 in 1938. He had a brother with Down’s syndrome whom his parents could not get on the Kinder-Transport and could not leave behind. He never saw them again. They all died at Auschwitz. We have yet to find a means of generating equivalent enthusiasm for the EU in generations that have not lived through such terrors.