Graham's blog Friday 19 December 2008

Published on Fri 19th Dec 2008

I fear I failed to announce in last week's newsletter my visit last Saturday to Tockington in Steve Webb's Westminster constituency for their Christmas social evening, but suffice it to say it was a superb event and I was made to feel very welcome (despite arriving late and with filthy hands, having had to change a punctured tyre on the M5). Tonight I speak at Wells constituency's annual Christmas supper in Highbridge, my last constituency Liberal Democrat event of 2008. If you feel I do not visit your constituency enough, please write and invite me: often I am not aware of events because nobody tells me.

This week Parliament gathered in Strasbourg for our final session of the year. We heard statements from Nicolas Sarkozy and Jose Manuel Barroso (Presidents of the Council and the Commission respectively) about last week's European Council. My reply in the debate can be found on www.europarl.europa.eu or (at some juncture) on YouTube, where you can find many of my speeches in Parliament and short films of some of my visits beyond Brussels and Strasbourg, e.g. my recent visit to Gibraltar. (And if you type 'Graham Watson' and 'James Bond' into their search engine you might even find a spoof film one of my colleagues made for our Christmas Party this week!)

Parliament voted on three important matters this week. We amended the text of the working time directive which was agreed in Council in June; I regret this, since it was a difficult deal to reach between the member states in Council and by upsetting the apple cart we jeopardise the whole package, but a substantial majority of MEPs (including some in my Liberal Democrat group) wanted to classify 'on call' time as working time (for junior doctors, etc) and to limit an employer's freedom to ask staff to work more than a 48 hour week. We approved the deal on legislation to fight climate change agreed last week at the European Council meeting. And we voted to approve the EU's budget for 2009.

On Wednesday morning the political group leaders had breakfast with Commission President Barroso to hear the details of his plans to revive the EU's economy and at lunchtime we met the laureates of the EP's Sakharov Freedom Prize, including Andrei Sakharov's widow Yelena Bonner, now in a wheelchair but still going strong. The occasion for this was the award ceremony of this year's Sakharov Prize to Chinese lawyer Hu Jia, whose only 'crime' is to have defended people exercising free speech. Of course he was not released from prison to attend the ceremony, but we watched a very moving testimony by his wife, filmed in their apartment in Beijing and smuggled out of China by the journalists' organisation Reporters without Borders. She will no doubt pay a heavy price for having recorded it: in the visitors gallery there were two representatives of the Chinese authorities.

On Tuesday the European Commission adopted an action plan on intelligent transport systems aimed at cutting exhaust emissions, road accidents and traffic congestion. Both Bristol and Bath & NE Somerset have been involved in pilot projects for these plans; and arising from this I was pleased to record a video message supporting Bristol's bid to become the EU's Green Capital. A budget of 300 million euros is foreseen to help in the development of GPS systems and other ways of relaying information about traffic conditions.

European integration continues apace. On Monday, Montenegro applied to join the EU. On 1st January, Slovakia will become the 16th country to swap its national currency for the euro, with four in every five Slovaks saying they feel well informed about the transition. And Eurostat released figures this week to show that on 1st January the EU will have a population of 499.7 million people.

I have reported previously on continuing and fraught attempts to compose a European History Book which could be used in all EU schools, representing a common view of our history. Two parallel developments may be of interest. The first is the decision to establish a museum of EU history and culture in Brussels; the second a project to collect memories of history from people who have lived through momentous periods in recent European history. I believe both will help us to overcome the ethnic hatreds and resentments which have plagued Europe for centuries and which - until recently - took the great tribes of Europe to war with each other at least once in every generation. I believe it at least possible that the twentieth century, which soaked our continent in blood, will give way to a twenty first century in which the power and the creativity of Europe's peoples can be harnessed in the pursuit of a more just, peaceful and stable world.

Perhaps that is an apposite wish for Christmas and a good point at which to conclude this newsletter. I wish you and your family a restful break and a good start to 2009. I will be taking a break with my family and I look forward to writing again on 9 January, at the end of Parliament's first week of the New Year.