Graham's blog Friday 18 June 2010 (North Dorset Liberal Democrats)

North Dorset Liberal Democrats <lynwilton@tiscali.co.uk>

Graham's blog Friday 18 June 2010

June 18, 2010 9:00 AM
Originally published by Sir Graham Watson MEP

Parliament has been in Strasbourg this week for formal debates and votes. One year on from the EP elections and five months after we approved the new European Commission, things are beginning to move again.

On Wednesday we voted to reject a proposal from the European Commission to exclude self-employed drivers from working time legislation. I did not, and nor did the majority of my colleagues; self employed drivers are already subject to health and safety regulations and to a maximum number of driving hours and we did not see the need to regulate them further. But the majority did. The Commission must now decide whether to withdraw the proposal altogether or to revise it.

We also voted at first reading on proposals from the European Commission on food labelling. We rejected their proposals for a 'traffic light' colour coding system for foods, though we called for more information on labels about the origin of foodstuffs. The British press have hailed this as a triumph for the food lobby; in fact the reality is far more nuanced.

The leaders of Parliament's four main political groups took the almost unprecedented step of holding a joint press conference on Tuesday to call for less 'intergovernmentalism' and more of the 'Community method'. This translates into a call for more EU solidarity and a greater commitment to allowing the European Commission to take the lead in policy development, particularly in matters of economic governance. But in Berlin, Paris, London and Rome there is currently little enthusiasm for this.

A good example of this was the outcome of a meeting of the 27 development aid ministers on Monday. They recommitted themselves to meeting the target of devoting 0.7% of GDP to development aid by 2015, though it is already clear that they will not meet the interim target of 0.56% by 2010: they are currently EUR 19 bn short. With the support of MEPs, Commissioner Piebalgs had suggested member states introduce binding national legislation on aid levels, but the idea got a frosty reception.

The heads of state and government met yesterday in Brussels; unusually it was for one day only. This European Council ('summit') meeting discussed mainly the state of the public finances in the 27 member countries. They were expected to give the green light to Iceland's application to join the EU - which will mean negotiations can start - and to take note of Serbia's.

Unusually, no meeting of the Liberal Democrat prime ministers will take place before the summit; this is a pity, since we won the recent election in The Netherlands and so have another LD PM. Since standing down from the leadership of Parliament's Liberal group, however, I no longer play a role in these in any case. I will be in Seville hosting a meeting of MPs from Europe and India about renewable energy, during which I will take them to visit the Albengoa solar thermal electricity generating plant.