It's very late to write to you about June's events but I thought I would keep up the flow of reports by letting you know what the main events last month were.

 

The June summit, with the agreement on the new EU treaty, took place at the end of June and MEPs held a one day plenary in Brussels to record their reaction. Mrs Merkel was much feted although in truth she made a very dumpy, dull and down to earth little speech, light years away from the baroque emotions with which Blair wooed the  Parliament  so effectively a year or so ago. There was no hiding the fact that the German Presidency felt that it had rescued the Constitution, and were insensitive enough to the French and Dutch "No" voters to underline this point. As Mrs Merkel said "The fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part". Most MEPs  loved this - with the exception of the British Conservatives, the far Right, a selection of eastern Europeans, and the far Left who resent the fact that the British were able to negotiate an opt out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

 

The Conservative line is that the new treaty does involve a substantial transfer of power from the UK to Brussels, and that the government should therefore agree to a referendum. It will now be interesting to watch what happens in Holland. I find my Dutch centre-right colleagues gloomy at the prospect of another referendum there. (They have never reconciled themselves to the victory of the No campaign, still less stood up for the views of those who voted No). Apparently the leader of the Dutch Socialists, who are part of the governing coalition, has said that they should have another referendum, which it is by no means certain would result in a "Yes" vote. The Socialists are in a strong position to get what they want. Some countries will have a referendum because their constitution requires it - as in Ireland where there is similarly some nervousness that the Irish, now losing the benefit of EU funding, may turn nasty about the EU itself.

 

One of the difficulties at this stage in the game is knowing what the Treaty actually  says. A short Inter Governmental Conference will now be held to work out the details. The European Parliament's delegation to this will contain all the usual federalist suspects. At the outset of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of Ministers , the Portuguese Prime Minister (Mr Socrates, confusingly, surely he should be President of Greece?) declared to MEPs that an important innovation in the new Treaty will be the strengthening of the role of national parliaments in their control of the European institutions' respect for the principle of subsidiarity. I shall believe it when I see it. Apart from anything else it is very difficult to sustain MPs'  interest in monitoring what is going on in Brussels when they would rather be taking part in debates on subjects of more seemingly immediate interest to their constituents - floods, single mothers, hoodies etc.

 

I have been contacted by several people recently, all in great distress at what is happening to land law in certain parts of Spain. MEPs held a debate and vote on this in June and called on the Commission to put in place an information campaign directed at European citizens buying real estate in a Member State other than their own. There are two main problems in  Spain, both related to the gross over-building of the coastal areas. First there are the heavy handed attempts by local authorities simply to bulldoze properties built without correct permission close to the coast, and/or to demand payments from house owners for urbanisation schemes. Secondly there are those building sites where  work has been stopped because the local mayor's office had been handing out illegal permits to build. Here my constituents find they have lost the deposit they paid (which might be up to half of the total cost of the house), and have also lost the house - in all likelihood.

 

A common theme is the inability of the Spain's authorities to cope. This sector is a regional government responsibility, so the Spanish ambassador in London simply passes one on to the regional government; Spanish lawyers often fail to communicate at all with their clients once the latter return to Britain; the regional government fails to take any action to prosecute anyone, still less get people's money back. I persevere in trying to help - although housing and planning law is not an EU matter. I asked one British consul whether property problems were his most difficult task. No, he said, if he had his way he would put up a sign at the airports: "Warning!" Do not marry a Spaniard". Marital problems apparently leave housing in the shade.

 

I remarked to a cat we once owned that she would make a nice pair of gloves. She didn't object but from a political point of view this was the Wrong Thing to Say. This is because the Parliament has just approved a ban, proposed by the Commission at MEPs' suggestion, on "the import, export, sale and production of cat and dog fur and skins". The products are often used to make cuddly toys for children and fashion items such as the trim for parka hoods. My Scottish Conservative colleague Struan Stevenson MEP has taken the lead on this. They won't be pleased in China: groups working against this trade estimate that some 2 million dogs and cats a year die in China alone, simply to supply the European market.

 

We have lost the fight for mercury barometers. MEPs refused this month to agree to an exception to the mercury ban so as to allow the supply to continue to those who restore antique barometers. This is because mercury is regarded by the Commission and by national governments as a dangerous substance whose existence in everyday use must be ruthlessly eradicated. A constituent wrote to ask me how the volume of mercury in a barometer compares with the mercury contained in one of the new energy saving (annoyingly dim) light bulbs. I don't know the answer to this one: can anyone help?

 

A sour note: the majority of MEPs this month approved the idea that the EU 's ill-fated GPS communications satellite, Galileo, should be financed in full from the EU  budget. Galileo is proving a black hole and in the Conservative view, should either be finance partly by private funding, or be cancelled - which may yet happen.

 

Yours sincerely