Graham's blog Friday 24 July 2009

Published on Fri 24th Jul 2009

The formation of the committees in the newly elected European Parliament was completed this week. All committee chairs and vice chairs have now been elected and the meeting timetables set for the rest of this year. My committee, the foreign affairs committee, held its first regular meeting when we received Swedish foreign affairs minister Carl Bildt on Tuesday afternoon. He told us inter alia that he has called on Israel to stop provocative actions such as eviction of Palestinians and demolition of their homes in East Jerusalem. Carl Bildt may become the EU's high representative for foreign affairs to succeed Javier Solana later this year; he already seems more effective on the middle east than the Quartet's highly paid 'special representative' Tony Blair.

My week started with a meeting with leaders of the West of England Aerospace Forum, together with Steve Webb MP. A decision is due soon on whether the UK will remain in the Airbus A400M (heavy lift aircraft) programme. It is hugely important to the retention of jobs and skills in the south west that we do. And the commitment must be made now, since a Tory government would surely pull us out of anything involving co-operation with the continentals, as William Hague's speech to the International Institute of Strategic Studies suggested strongly. (It is a worrying speech; read it at this link.)

I attended a meeting of the LibDem International Affairs Committee at the Palace of Westminster on Monday afternoon before hopping on the last Eurostar to Brussels and was pleased to hear our foreign affairs spokesman and other Commons and Lords colleagues commit themselves to defending UK membership of the EU in the general election campaign which is already beginning to take shape. The prime difficulty we will face will lie in raising the money we need in order to fight an effective campaign against a resurgent and bushy-tailed Conservative Party.

Iceland's parliament voted last week to join the EU; and their government wasted no time in applying, lodging the country's application papers yesterday. As a member of the European Economic Area it already fulfils most of the accession criteria. The process will take a while but is not expected to throw up any major difficulties. Indeed, the matter is already on the agenda of the EU's foreign affairs ministers' meeting on 27 July.

One of the criteria for EU membership is abolition of the death penalty. Tragically, the USA this week carried out its 1000th execution since their reintroduction of the death penalty in 1976. The EU used the occasion to call on the Americans to introduce a moratorium with a view to eventual abolition.

Much of the EU's work under the Swedish presidency in the second half of this year will focus on justice. The so-called 'Stockholm Programme' aims to make it easier for individuals and companies to have access to justice in cross-border disputes, though the challenges of cross-border divorce cases are likely to be left until Spain takes over the EU Presidency in January.

The most interesting meeting of my week was a supper with NGOs determined to advance the case for a renewable energy smart supergrid, of which I wrote in a recent pamphlet (see my website). I hope to devote time to helping them build a constituency capable of overpowering the innate conservatism of governments and power companies which will otherwise take us down the nuclear energy route at increasing speed.

I start my summer holiday on Saturday and will extend it by a fortnight this year since I am writing a book. I will blog again early in September.