Animal cloning, maternity benefits and democracy in Moldova: Graham Watson's letter from Europe

By Graham Watson, on Sunday, October 24, 2010

Parliament voted in Strasbourg this week to approve the financial regulation and the staff regulation for the EU’s new External Action (read ‘Diplomatic’) service, which means that Baroness Catherine Ashton can now start to build a team of people to support her in her work as High Representative for foreign and security policy.

She answered questions for two and a half hours over supper on Tuesday night from the chairpersons of parliament’s delegations for relations with third countries and impressed us favourably with her almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the world’s many conflicts and challenges.

Further to my visit to Moldova last week I chaired a negotiating session involving representatives of each political group to agree a common text for a draft parliamentary resolution on Moldova. It is the first time I can recall having done this in 16 years in the European Parliament and involved nearly 90 minutes of patient coaxing and cajoling, but the resulting text was approved by the House almost unanimously and essentially tells Moldovans that the EU has done everything it can reasonably be expected to and now it is up to them to decide whether they want to empower the democratic parties with a parliamentary majority adequate to govern or put the Communists back into office at next month’s elections.

The main business of the week was voting next year’s budget, at the same time as the announcement at Westminster of the UK’s Comprehensive Spending Review. Liberal Democrat and Conservative MEPs voted to oppose any increases in the EU budget at this time of national austerity; Labour MEPs did not.

We also voted, however, to put a higher share of EU spending into research and development, so important to economic recovery. The budget will only be finalised after discussions between Parliament and the Council of the 27 national finance ministers; and my guess is that Parliament will agree to restrict EU spending for the next two or three years in return for an agreement on reforming how the EU is financed. Rather than continued unseemly haggling every five years over how much each member state pays, we may get an agreement to fund the EU from a tax on bank profits or the sale of carbon emission permits or something of that nature.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon addressed the House on Wednesday. It was the 60th anniversary of the European human rights convention and he warned us not to allow a polarisation of which the primary losers are immigrants of Islamic faith. “Some play on people’s fears”, he said. ‘They accuse immigrants of violating European values. Yet too often it is the accusers who subvert these values.” He went on to tell us ‘the world cannot afford a Europe that does this’.

The statement from the European Commission on France and the Roma turned out to be a damp squib. The documents provided by France on Friday, October 15 are still being studied. The Commission needs another month to determine whether France broke EU anti-discrimination laws. France remains under surveillance, the Commissioner told the House late on Tuesday night.

Another controversial issue this week was Parliament’s call (by 390 votes to 192, with 59 abstentions) for minimum maternity leave of 20 weeks on full salary and two weeks’ paternity leave. (The EU legal minimum is currently 14 weeks, with no pay level stipulated.) It will not become law unless the member states in Council agree, which looks unlikely. The UK estimates it could add over two billion pounds to wage bills.

The Commission decided on Tuesday to recommend to Parliament and Council a suspension of animal cloning for food production, on grounds of animal welfare. We await their proposal, expected early next year. It will not prohibit cloning for purposes of artificial reproduction or research; nor for saving species at risk of extinction.

I welcomed to Strasbourg this week Cornish language campaigners, who came to give a presentation to our cross-party interest group on minority languages.

Next week is the week I know you’ve been waiting for: the launch of my book Building a Liberal Europe, just out with John Harper Publishing and a snip at £20. (OK folks, that’s the last you’ll hear of it!)

(image of Graham Watson by Salty1977 under the Creative Commons)