This is from Chris Davies’ regular email about what’s going on in Brussels and the European Union.

LIB DEM NOTES FROM BRUSSELS

12 February 2010

The EU is looking pretty chaotic and ramshackle at the moment, but I am writing this having just come from an exciting exchange and historic vote in the European Parliament so I’m not feeling too bad.

Before I explain more let me just say that if any Liberal Democrat supporters will have time to help during the General Election campaign, and are not living in one of our target seats, please do read the last item of these ‘Notes’.

Chris Davies MEP

A LITTLE MOMENT OF HISTORY

The issue was the so-called SWIFT agreement between the EU governments and the USA. (If this sounds dull stay with me for another paragraph or two).

Initially made on a ‘temporary’ basis, it has given the American authorities access to the confidential bank records of millions of European citizens. Allegedly it helps identify transactions that might suggest terrorist sources of funding. But it’s outrageously one-sided – the Americans have been able to see our details but not the other way around. Critics of the agreement say that it does not provide proper protection for personal privacy, has done nothing in practice to combat terrorism, and that the information can be accessed anyway if selectively requested, just not on a general basis.

The lobbying to persuade MEPs to support it has been intense, with letters from Hillary Clinton and pleas from the Commission and the Council, although not all governments (Sweden for example) agree with it.

The Council, represented by Spain at present, got off to a bad start a month ago when they forgot that the new Lisbon Treaty gives the European Parliament a veto right over international treaties and failed to get the documents prepared in time. They have been struggling to regain authority ever since.

Last Thursday the huge semi-circular Parliament chamber in Strasbourg was packed for the lunchtime votes. Fourth on the list was a single recommendation to reject the agreement tabled by my Dutch Liberal (VVD) colleague, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, who has been in charge of the brief.

The President (Speaker) invited the leader of the right-of-centre group, Joseph Daul, to move a motion of postponement. Daul stood up and argued that the Council had promised speedy action to address the concerns so we should cooperate by giving them more time. One half of the chamber applauded vigorously while the other half stayed quiet. The sound effect seemed to split the room in two. I noticed a few British Labour MEPs toeing the British government line by making clapping motions amidst their silent colleagues, but not many.

The leader of the British Tories, Timothy Kirkhope, got up to second the postponement, and the House again responded with claps on one side and silence on the other.

Jeanine got to her feet three spaces along the row from me and opposed the motion. Her party is to the right-of-centre but not on this issue. The Council had broken its promises time and again, she said, had shown no good faith, and had done nothing to address concerns about individual privacy. She finished with a killer sentence (I paraphrase): “We all know that if the President of the United States were to submit an agreement of this kind to Congress, one that gave details of American citizens to Europeans but not the other way around, it would be rejected OUT OF HAND.” This time our side of the House erupted with applause, and it was the turn of the right-of-centre to stay silent.

Cecilia Malmstrom rose from the European Commission bench. I have known her since my first day in the Parliament when she was elected as a young Swedish Liberal alongside me in 1999. As an MEP she was a great champion for issues of liberty. When Liberals joined the new right-of-centre government in Sweden three years ago she was appointed European Minister, and a couple of days ago she was confirmed as the new Swedish Commissioner, so she has worn all three EU hats. She informed the House of the official Commission position of support for the postponement.

The leader of the Socialists and Democrats, Martin Schulz, stood up on a point of order. “Is this REALLY a point of order?” queried the President. “I just wanted to ask the Commissioner,” said Martin innocently, “how her personal position had changed since a few weeks ago when she stood here as a Swedish Minister and opposed the agreement?” The House burst into laughter. A huge grin spread over Cecilia’s face. She didn’t get up but just gestured to the President, “how can I answer that?!”

The motion to postpone was put to a vote. The result came up on the giant display screen: lost by 15. The Liberal and Left burst into cheers.

The President took the main vote. With the ‘compromise’ now off the agenda MEPs voted by a big majority, 378 to 196, to reject the agreement.

The European Parliament had stood up for individual rights and for the first time ever had rejected an international treaty. Around me there was great excitement, and half the House rose to applaud Jeanine in a standing ovation.

If you haven’t heard much about what would normally have been expected to be a major news story there is a simple explanation. The Parliament was meeting in Strasbourg, while every journalist covering European affairs was in Brussels to follow the meeting of Prime Ministers as they considered the fate of Greece and the euro.

But behind the scenes, the governments of Europe know now that they can no longer take the European Parliament for granted. Adoption of the Lisbon Treaty has moved the goalposts.

SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS

Votes in Parliament have allowed me not to spend too much time contemplating the depressing bigger European picture. There are the problems of Greek indebtedness and the need to protect the euro – highlighting the fundamental dilemma of having a common currency without a common fiscal strategy.

Then there is petty squabbling between EU prime ministers and presidents (we have SO many office holders all competing for attention), illustrated most of all in Copenhagen and greatly weakening the EU’s negotiating position on climate change, but now shown up by the summit planned for Madrid that seems to have nothing on the agenda and that has been spurned by Barack Obama.

Meanwhile, the Lisbon Agenda was supposed to drive our economies forward, but hasn’t, while the Lisbon Treaty was supposed to make the EU more coherent, but isn’t. The economies of a host of European countries (including Britain’s) are in a mess, no-one is sure how to drive forward the so-called ‘green’ economy, we don’t know to handle China, and our ability to meet our targets and deliver on promises seems very poor indeed.

Oh well, nothing is perfect!

THE UKIP VIEW

Nigel Farage, leader of the UKIP MEPs, made his own contribution to Europe’s future last Tuesday, just before the vote to confirm the new European Commission in office.

“I have a dream,” he told the House (I paraphrase heavily!). “In my dream the people of many communist dictatorships overthrow their rulers and join a great liberal democracy called the European Union.”

At this point he was interrupted when nine tenths of the House burst into loud and sustained and ironic applause. We all know Nigel and the way he denounces the EU at every opportunity; this was too good an opportunity to miss. He stood with a smile on his face, enjoying the moment, waiting for the sound eventually to die down.

“And then I woke up,” he said. “And the dream had become a real life nightmare. And the people found themselves living in a European Union that was just as dictatorial as the Soviet Union. And the only way they could restore their rights was to resort to violence.”

Ah Nigel, always so positive. If only he dreamed more.

FISHY TALES

On a truly positive note I am pleased to report that the European Parliament has called for the international trade in blue fin tuna (BFT) to be banned.

BFT is the most expensive fish in the world, and each one can be sold for tens of thousands of euros, mostly to serve the Japanese sushi market. With so much money at stake it should be no surprise that organised crime and the mafia are involved in the trade, and that restrictions on catches have been blatantly ignored. Stocks of the Mediterranean fish are now critically endangered.

Proposals to ban the international trade are hotly contested, with governments around the Mediterranean mostly bowing to the short term desires of fishermen to keep catching in defiance of the scientific advice. The same sentiments are reflected amongst MEPs, so although in this case the Parliament has no say over the final negotiations it was hugely encouraging to see MEPs back the call for a ban by a large majority. Encouraging, that is, not only for the survival of blue fin tuna but also for the prospect of securing ambitious reforms to the common fisheries policy in a process that will start later this year.

Maybe people are getting the message at last. If there are no fish left, there will be no jobs for fishermen.

LATEST ON THE CLIMATE

There’s lots of snow about yet the satellite records show that the world had its warmest January since these surveys began 32 years ago. Personally I am very conscious that there is scepticism about the science behind climate change, and this makes it more difficult to take the political decisions necessary to combat it. I made this point to the new Climate Commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, when she met me earlier this week together with the other party’s environment spokesmen. I was surprised that she was surprised, but apparently Denmark is the only place in Europe where public concern has not been affected by recent attacks on the climate scientists and they accept (rightly) that the fundamentals science behind global warming has not been challenged one iota.

I’ve had two small triumphs this month. First, the European Parliament approved an amendment I had tabled regarding climate policy after Copenhagen. It called for the EU to increase its target for 2020 CO₂ reductions to “more than“ 20% – without specifying by exactly how much. It proved to be a compromise that united the House, and as I had only thought of writing it during an idle moment the previous weekend I was quietly pleased.

Secondly, the Commission and the Council finally approved detailed plans for the selection of carbon capture and storage demonstration projects and for use of the 300 million carbon allowances of (worth maybe €6 billion) that will provide essential subsidy. Longstanding readers of these ‘Notes’ will know that I introduced this financing mechanism, and although the final decision was not mine I did my share of lobbying and regard myself still as a midwife to the process.

A NEW BEGINNING

MEPs finally gave their support to the appointment of a new European Commission in a vote on February 10, so maybe we will now start to see some initiatives being taken after a long hiatus. The 5-year term of the previous Commission formally came to a close at the end of October, but with the Lisbon Treaty expected then to come into force on 1 December various procedural devices were deployed to extend its life to avoid confusion. Not surprisingly, the ‘time expired’ Commissioners were not very active.

During January, the new Commissioners-designate, nominated by their respective Prime Ministers, each had to face a 3-hour public hearing and questioning by the MEPs covering the brief to which they had been allocated by the Commission President. It’s not a perfect process – too many MEPs like hearing the sound of their own voice instead of asking pertinent questions – but it forces the new Commissioners to learn their briefs and it’s a great deal more rigorous than anything a British government minister has to undergo.

I took part in the examination of the Commissioners-designate for Environment, Climate Action, Fisheries, and Health, and because I am a team leader on environment and health issues for the European Liberal Democrats they had all been to see me beforehand so that I could explore more issues with them privately. At the end of each hearing the MEPs involved contributed to a formal letter that indicated whether we thought they were up to the job or not. Legally the European Parliament can only sack the entire Commission, not pick off Commissioners one by one, but parliament’s grow organically and experience and precedent has changed the rules.

Some of the individuals we interviewed were excellent, and most were highly competent (including all of mine), but one – the Bulgarian nominee with the humanitarian aid brief – left MEPs deeply unimpressed. “Incompetent, possibly corrupt, and arrogant with it,” was one description I heard, while another colleague told me “she was only put up for the job because she is married to the man who bankrolls the Bulgarian mafia!”

It was made clear to the Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, that if her name was on the list the Commission as a whole would not gain approval. Private words were spoken, she withdrew her nomination. The Parliament had shown its teeth and drawn blood, and we felt good at having done so.

The Bulgarian Prime Minister nominated instead another woman who has been a Vice President of the World Bank for the past decade. She sailed through her hearing with an impressive command of her subject. So the country now has a good representative in the Commission, but imagine what the debate in the Bulgarian press must have been like throughout this period!

At least we have been able to follow the discussion about the appointment of the British Commissioner, Baroness Cathy Ashton, who has taken over the new job of High Representative for Foreign Affairs. On the whole I think the UK media has treated her quite gently, because the MEPs I have spoken to were not impressed with her performance at her hearing. They thought her unimpressive, lacking in knowledge, and without the strength and conviction necessary in a person supposed to be involved in shaping, expressing and negotiating EU policy on the world stage.

I wish her well. She has been dropped into a role for which she has had no experience and she has to be allowed time to demonstrate her abilities. But for the sake of all those who want the EU to have a positive role in world affairs I do hope she is able to do so.

Keep in touch with Chris:

Website: http://www.chrisdaviesmep.org.uk

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chris.davies.mep

Blog: http://chrisdaviesmep.blogspot.com

Email: chris@chrisdaviesmep.org.uk