The European Parliament in September 2005

By far the most important issue in the European Parliament this month was the question of the accession of Turkey to the EU. This divides the parties in many continental countries, most notably in Germany and France, and things are getting urgent because negotiations are due to open with Turkey very soon, unless the Austrians are able to sabotage them by insisting that a “privileged partnership”, not just full membership, must be an option on offer. Our debate concerned the conclusion of a protocol extending Turkey’s association agreement with the EU to the 10 new member states: agreement on this was postponed in a close vote. We also passed a resolution which toured the difficult points of Turkey’s recent history (the Armenian massacres, the failure to settle the Cyprus question, shortcomings in the penal code), but went on to note that Turkey had formally fulfilled the conditions for starting accession negotiations.

 

Debates come alive on such issues – insofar as they can in our echoing and usually half-deserted voting chamber in Strasbourg. One French centre right colleague complained that the “no” voters in the French referendum had asked for a “pause” in the enlargement process, but here again the heads of state and government were taking no notice and going ahead anyway. The leader of the German Socialists told his German opposite number leading the Christian Democrats: “Be honest. You don’t want Turkey in because it’s a Muslim country but you do want Croatia because it’s Catholic”. Our German colleagues are actually playing a longer and cleverer game than the Austrians: they will not oppose the opening of negotiations, but cheerfully admit that these could go on for a very long time indeed. 

 

Incidentally we now have Bulgarian and Rumanian parliamentarians as observers in the European Parliament, preparing for their entry in 2007. No Croatians though because their failure to produce their controversial general for trial at The Hague.

 

We had two sessions in Strasbourg this month. The silent stoicism of colleagues who face very long journeys to Strasbourg never ceases to amaze me. It depresses me too since I had imagined that the Eastern Europeans would forcefully object to working in a city to which there are few direct flights Perhaps years under Communism inured them to putting up with inconveniences decided by others.

 

At the first session MEPs backed a new EU law aimed at creating new children’s medicines and ending the medical guesswork often involved in treating children. At the moment about one fifth of the EU population is aged between 0 and 19 but well over half the medicines used to treat children have neither been tested nor authorised for use on children. A new EU fund will coordinate a network of paediatric medicine researchers.

 

We also considered the health and safety proposal designed to protect workers from exposure to artificial radiation, for example from computer screens. During its brief career, the word got about that the proposal would cover protection against sunlight. The British tabloids mad much of it. Conservative MEPs persuaded a majority of MEPs to support an amendment that took the EU sting out of the proposal by     leaving the issue of protection against sunlight to member states to decide. The Commission refused to accept this so deadlock ensued.

 

Two weeks later the sunshine directive bit the dust as one of 68 proposed measures that have now been withdrawn by the Commission. Apparently many EU governments objected to its impact on small firms, no estimate of cost impact had ever been made on it (!) and exposure to natural sunlight was not part of the original proposal. Among those ditched at the same time were proposals for the compulsory ingredient listing for alcoholic drinks, and for a harmonisation of weekend traffic bans on trucks. Other proposals will be subject to further assessment, especially focussing on their likely cost, before they can be adopted.      

 

In the intervals of debating such things I visited a modern “energy from waste” plant built by three local authorities at Freiburg, across the Rhine in Baden Wurtemburg. This is very relevant to developments at home because all our local authorities are now struggling to reduce dependency on landfill of waste and find alternative means of disposal. We tend to concentrate on recycling and composting, with local councillors reluctant to support incineration because of public opposition. However the Germans have just taken a bold step and banned any further land filling of waste that can be burned. This means they must rely on recycling, where they have a good record, and incineration of anything that cannot be recycled. The energy produced at the Freiburg plant goes to heat local houses and businesses; it also produces electricity for the grid. Unlike the dreaded wind farms so strongly opposed at home, this energy is produced all the time. I asked what difficulties they had with planning permission. Apparently none. The local community wanted the incinerator for the energy produced and because they realised that it was impossible to recycle everything. Incineration was seen as the natural partner of recycling. There were no fears about toxic emissions from such new plant. The public hearing took half a week. Councillors from Cornwall and Gloucestershire might take note!

 

Petitioners asking the European Commission to take the British government to court for its failure to regulate Equitable Life were active in Brussels this week. MEPs will certainly do what they can but in Question Time Commissioner McCreevy stated clearly that the Commission cannot supervise individual insurance undertakings, and accepts that the UK government has now taken steps to reform the regulation of life    insurance firms. Redress can only be sought form the national courts, not from the European Court of Justice.  Pressed further by MEPs, Mr McCreevy was firm; “The role of the Commission is to ensure that the UK is currently in conformity with relevant EU legislation. It cannot make any pronouncement on the content or application of former regulation regimes which have been replaced”. And that, I’m afraid, is probably that.