The European Parliament in March 2005

I had an interesting encounter with the French “Non a la Constitution” campaign this month. One evening in Strasbourg I went to see the new German film about Hitler, “Downfall”, unfortunately dubbed into French, - a mistake since French cannot convey the same feeling of heavy menace as German. Stopping at a cafe later I noticed a group of Frenchwomen with a bundle of leaflets they had been delivering. They were activists in the “Votez Non” campaign. I got chatting and we agreed that since I was a British Conservative, opposed to the Constitution, we were soul sisters.

 

In fact the leaflet proved that we were not soul sisters at all. For the “No” umbrella is gathering some very disparate folk beneath it. The ladies I met were from the French trade union Left. They see the Constitution as a threat to public sector jobs because as their leaflet says “the EU is systematically destroying our public services and replacing them by a privatised system in parallel with the introduction of an EU directive for a common market in services”. They blame the EU for the transfer of French jobs to Eastern Europe and quote Commissioner Mrs Hubner as saying “We must facilitate the movement of jobs in order that European companies can lower their labour costs”. They claim that the Constitution will mean the end of the (generous) French sickness assurance scheme because “The EU and its constitution forbid social security monopolies”. They link the Constitution to housing difficulties, claiming it will mean higher rents, inflation of the land tax, and, with privatisation, the eventual abandonment of social housing policies. To stop all this there is only one remedy: “Votez Non”.

 

There is another unexpected thread to the French No campaign, which I picked up in this leaflet, and in TV discussions. The French are questioning the idea that the need for a Franco-German special relationship makes their agreement to the Constitution inevitable. Indeed some commentators argue that the Constitution will cement a lopsided relationship where France loses its distinctiveness, the Germans dominate the Central Bank, and continue to have more seats than any other state in the European Parliament, which will, under the Constitution, gain in importance, especially in relation to the CAP. The Strasbourg protesters ask explicitly:  “Under the pretext of Franco-German reconciliation and the presence of the European instructions some people say Strasbourgers can’t vote No. But isn’t Strasbourg like other towns? Our social problems result from more than 20 years of policies dictated by the European Union, its Treaties and now its Constitution”. Maybe I should have introduced the ladies to Roger Knapman of UKIP as their true soul brother.

 

The British Conservatives and the political group we belong to are strong supporters of the proposed directive for a free market in services, although there are bits of it that will need amendment. It is now going through the Parliament’s committees. If ever agreed, it should mean an end to the obstructions and protectionism that have prevented British companies from offering services on the Continent. Although he has certainly tried, President Chirac has not succeeded in dealing the directive a mortal blow, so it will remain in play to rattle him.

 

The Parliament itself keeps returning to debate how the EU institutions can make sense of the “Lisbon strategy” designed to make Europe more competitive. But in truth the fate of the strategy is in the hands of the national governments and the news of French and German unemployment continues to be bad. Meanwhile we are limbering up to let in more states with low wage rates. This month the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee approved the accession of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, although insisting that MEPs will be consulted on any postponement.

 

I was hard at work on two issues this month. First on a new proposal for a groundwater directive. This attempts to establish a framework for better protection of groundwater, based on local management by region or river basin, adhering to certain common principles. The Germans threw a fit and tried to amend it so that exactly the same standards for groundwater would apply everywhere, irrespective of the fact that when they drew up their list of substances (arsenic, lead etc) it was found that approximately 40 percent of EU groundwaters probably had natural concentrations already over the German levels. It would have cost a huge amount to adopt the German strategy but, in their eyes, at least we would have had measurable uniformity. It took a lot of effort to get other nationalities on side to defeat this and put something more practical in place in the committee: I hope the vote in the plenary in April will go the same way.

 

I also went into bat for P and O ferries, which were worried about a proposal designed to cut sulphur in marine fuels – a good idea and sensibly worded when it left the Commission. But in committee our Finnish Green rapporteur wanted to make things cleaner than clean in the Baltic by cutting the number of hours that ships can run on marine fuel in ports. This didn’t work for the cross Channel ships, French and British, which run on a very sharp turn around and don’t have the time to haul quayside electric cables on board. Instead they are fitting “scrubbers” to allow them to use sulphur rich marine fuels but not pollute the atmosphere. Mrs Hassi (the Green) is rather like us in believing what works at home must be good for everyone else, but she was defeated by an unusually united Anglo-French coalition.

 

I went this month to the opening of a new plant which will be the first in Britain capable of recycling household alkaline batteries. It is at Darlaston in the West Midlands and is operated by G and P batteries. It is the first time ever that I have been to a plant that is actually anticipating a new EU law, since we expect agreement sometime early in 2006 to a directive committing everybody to recycle a certain percentage of batteries each year – probably about 40% of sales volume. Otherwise they go into landfill, taking some pretty nasty chemical with them. Or they are trekked to France to be recycled there, which is environmentally daft.

 

Public sector strikes meant that I took 11 hours to get home from Strasbourg. Very aggravating for me but more for President Chirac – and bad news for the Constitution

 

Yours sincerely