By far the most important event in the Parliament last month was the announcement to MEPs of the Commission's decision that the entry of Bulgaria and Rumania into the European Union can take place, as envisaged, on 1 January 2007. The Commission will still have the possibility of reducing payments to these countries if they do not continue to take measures against fraud, corruption and organised crime and will put in place "a mechanism for cooperation and verification of progress." Neither country has the mechanisms necessary to cope with the cornucopia of agricultural spending that they will now enjoy so the Commission has "adopted specific measures to ensure the proper management of these funds".

 

Rumanian and Bulgarian food industries do not come up to EU safety standards so, in the words of Enlargement Commissioner, Mr Olli Rehn: "non-compliant food establishments in the milk, meat and fish sectors  will be denied access to the EU internal market but will be allowed to produce for the national market, bearing a specific label. After three years they have to comply with EU rules or close down". Given the absence of border controls after 1 January 2007 it seems likely that "non compliant establishments" will want to get some of their product to richer, higher priced, western European markets, and will find it easy to do so - but we will see.

 

After Rumania and Bulgaria that's it. No more new members, which is particularly bad news for Croatia, at one time seen as likely to join next year but put beyond he pale by its refusal to yield up a war criminal. After Mr Rehn had spoken the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, told MEPs that in his view "an institutional settlement should precede any future enlargement". This could be code for a new constitution, whose hopes anti-Europeans in this country like to keep alive. More  likely, once European leaders have surveyed the potential battle-field, is that we  will see a revised Treaty which will address issues such as hauling back the number of under-employed Commissioners ( soon to be 27) and, possibly, adjusting voting rights in the Council of Ministers so that the powers of the larger member states are enhanced. Such a limited Treaty adjustment could more easily be steered round the whirlpools of popular referenda - by those member states which want to avoid them.

 

We already have Bulgarian and Rumanian MPs in the Parliament as observers. One of the Bulgarians, Dimitar Stoyanov, put his foot in every conceivable politically incorrect bucket this month. Commenting in a widely disseminated e-mail on the claims of  a woman Hungarian MEP of gypsy origin to be nominated for the position of best MEP campaigner for justice and fundamental rights by a Brussels magazine, he said:  "There are thousands of gypsy girls more beautiful than this one - the best available at 5000 Euros each..." Result: storms of protest and the Bulgarian parliament ethics committee is "re-thinking" the nomination of their observers.

 

The bad news this month was that MEPs voted to spend €136 million buying the remaining buildings in Strasbourg not already owned by the parliament. This decision will almost certainly make it more complicated to extract MEPs from Strasbourg and comes just as the petition opposing Strasbourg has been signed by over a million EU citizens, with most support coming from Holland. The cause has also attracted the support of Commissioner Mrs Wallstrom who commented that Strasbourg has now become "a negative symbol - of wasting money, bureaucracy and the insanity of the Brussels institutions": Too right.

 

My colleague Christopher Beazley MEP took up the issue of education about Europe in his report to the Parliament this month. Christopher wants all schools in Europe to ensure that, by the end of their secondary education, their pupils have the knowledge and competences they need to prepare them for their role as EU citizens. This "European dimension" would have two aspects: access to information about the EU, its institutions methods and practices, and the development of language skills.

 

This isn't so terrible is it? UKIP, hereinafter the UK Ignorance Party, voted against it and the popular press dislikes the idea of "Brussels" interfering in our schools. I find it appalling that none of the youngsters I have had on temporary work attachments in Brussels have ever been taught anything about the EU, how it works and what it does, at school. They have simply found their way to me on their own initiative, and once they get here the whole thing is new to them. The knowledge of the EU they acquire will stand them in good stead: these are the very people who in a few years time will be working in our civil service or in business and will inevitably find that the EU is very important to them. .

 

One thing we did not see this month was any EU agreement to remove the national veto on cross-border police and judicial cooperation.  Again the popular press had wound up their readers to a fever pitch of opposition. In reality it needed unanimous support to be adopted and 14 states voted against. Something to bear in mind when you are (next) burgled and the police assure you - as Wiltshire police once assured me - that "everything will be on the continent by the next day".

 

Two comments on EU waste policy. We are still lagging behind the best performing EU states in making recycling easy for people. Visiting Germany this month I saw recycling bins, well designed and colour coded, everywhere. These highly visible arrangements supplement kerbside collection. And they collect plastic while our plastics recyclers still have to import raw material from the continent. Two, in the absence of any "joined up" Labour policy on waste, our local authorities are having to send waste environmentally damaging miles to avoid landfill penalties: Poole council now has a 20 year contract to send its non recyclable waste to a Slough incinerator.

 

Flu prevented me from going to the party conference but I like what I've seen of The Tree. Perhaps we should go further and make it an interactive tree so that we could have bare branches in winter and gradually apply and remove the leaves as the months pass. Just a thought and quite in tune with the party's attitude to cutting edge technology. If you want to download the logo go to the party's website.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Caroline Jackson MEP.