Graham's Blog from the European Parliament, Friday 27 February, 2009

Published on Fri 27th Feb 2009

Brussels was quiet this week, with the European Parliament mostly in recess. One or two committees met, extraordinarily, to deal with business they need to clear up before we rise in nine weeks' time for the elections; and members who do not seek to return in July formed the bulk of the delegations we despatched abroad for discussions with parliaments elsewhere.

The Foreign Ministers and European Affairs Ministers met in Brussels on Monday. The Foreign Ministers agreed to double the human resources of the 200-strong, 17 nation police mission in Afghanistan which seeks to train Afghani police officers in law enforcement methods which respect human rights. They also discussed progress in Serbia and Montenegro in bringing war criminals to justice. (I had supper last night with the Chief Prosecutor of ICTY, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and he told me there is progress, albeit slow.) There was discussion too about how to unblock the five billion euros in the EU budget which Commission and Parliament want to invest in job-creating energy and telecoms networks but which member states oppose (see previous newsletters). A deal on this may yet be struck.

Sunday lunch is taking on a new meaning. Last Sunday the prime ministers of Germany, the UK, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands and the president of France met in Berlin to co-ordinate an EU position on the economic depression ahead of the G20 summit. This Sunday the Czechs will host in Brussels an EU summit (27 heads of state and government) to discuss the whole thing again. A waste of time and money? Perhaps. But better than planning individual exit strategies which would undoubtedly involve protectionism and run the risk of a repeat of 1939-45. As Churchill said, jaw-jaw is better than war-war. And as that great Liberal also said 'we need a wider patriotism and a common citizenship for the distraught peoples of this powerful and turbulent continent'. (Before you object, reader, to my description of Churchill as a Liberal - when we all know he was a turncoat who joined the Tories - go back and read his speeches. He was never really a Conservative.)

My week reflected the lack of urgency in Europe's capital. On Monday I visited EU-funded projects in Cornwall; on Tuesday I had a day of meetings in London; on Wednesday I campaigned with PPCs and local councillors in Dorset against the threat to retained fire fighters of an obligatory maximum 48 hour week. Yesterday I travelled to Brussels for meetings and to deal with correspondence (if I have 500 letters and emails per week in my constituency office it must be three times that number in Parliament!) and today I will be back in Cornwall, in Falmouth this afternoon and in Truro this evening.

I will not be able to report to you from Sunday's summit, since Parliament's political group leaders have been denied our usual access to the antechambers by the officious bureaucracy of the Council of Ministers. But, in compensation, it will save me a 4.15 am start on Sunday for an early journey to Heathrow: and since Sunday morning is the only chance I get for a lie-in and since I am dogged by a heavy cold this week I shall not complain.