Graham's Blog entry, Friday 17 July 2009

Published on Fri 17th Jul 2009

MEPs amassed in Strasbourg on Monday, more than half of them new to Parliament. The place had a 'first day at a new school' atmosphere. Help desks abounded, eager young graduates pushed their CVs hither and thither hoping for jobs as researchers, the new boys (and girls! 35% of MEPs are women) felt lost and tried hard not to show it.

Of the UK MEPs, fewer than one third are new, which gives us an advantage in the new Parliament. Of the French, 62% are new. Their political class had a clear-out.

My successor Guy Verhofstadt made his maiden speech in the debate on the priorities of the EU's incoming Swedish Presidency, as did Adam Kosa MEP from Hungary - though his was silent since he is deaf and spoke through a sign language interpreter. Sweden's government is a Conservative-Liberal coalition; and though the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister are both Conservatives, the EU Affairs Minister is a former MEP colleague, Cecilia Malmstrom. She is much in evidence.

BNP MEP Nick Griffin made his maiden speech in reply to the Statement on Iran. I spoke on behalf of my Group in reply to that on China, saying we need to engage with them. (Click here for my speech). Since China will be the focus of much of my parliamentary work in this mandate, I was pleased to get down to debating it with Council and Commission straight away. I will sit on Parliament's foreign affairs committee and on our delegation for relations with China.

Strasbourg was hot and humid, as so often in July. Senior members and senior staff were tired after the rigour of the election campaign and the tedious controversy of reforming the political groups and satisfying MEPs demands for offices and committee seats. Tempers flared and there were casualties. Timothy Kirkhope MEP was ousted from the leadership of the new group formed by the Tories by an unsavoury Pole whose bid for a vice presidency of Parliament had been scuppered by the independent candidature of another British Tory. UK Lib Dem MEPs decided to end Andrew Duff's tenure as delegation leader by electing Fiona Hall, our MEP from north east England, instead. Of other UK Lib Dem MEPs, Diana Wallis was re-elected as a Vice President of Parliament and Sharon Bowles was elected to chair the economic and monetary affairs committee. I slid comfortably and quietly onto the backbenches, relieved to cast off the yoke of office which I've borne for ten years and slightly bemused to discover that, not having had to post my own letters for so long, I no longer know the whereabouts of the letter boxes.

We elected former Polish Prime Minister and Solidarity activist Jerzy Buzek to the Presidency of Parliament by a landslide. He got off to a good start by telling the Czech Prime Minister to bring his speech to an end after 15 minutes. Since the man is a civil servant leading an administration of technocrats, and since the Czech Republic has new elections in October, it was probably not too risky.

Liberal Democrats took two parliamentary initiatives. The first is in the form of an Oral Question for debate about the new law exempting Italy's political class from prosecution from criminal offences; the other another question about Lithuania's new law banning information on homosexuality from schools. Both will be debated after the summer break.

One striking feature of the new Parliament is how many former ministers and prime ministers we have. Suddenly our national politicians are waking up to its importance and its attraction. Except, of course, in Blighty.