Graham's blog Friday 9 October 2009

Published on Fri 9th Oct 2009

Parliament was in plenary session in Brussels for two days this week, but with very little legislative business. We heard reports from Council and Commission about the implications of the Irish referendum result (positive) and debated the implications for media freedom in Italy of Prime Minister Berlusconi's huge media empire (negative).

We voted to approve proposals for visa liberalisation for the countries of the western Balkans.

I spent Monday in Monaco, trying to raise funds for a global 'climate parliament' which I want to set up to concentrate legislators' minds on how to implement whatever agreement comes out of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. Most of my time in Brussels from Tuesday to Thursday was spent working on the book I am writing about the contribution of Liberal Democrats to the building of the EU.

Today I am in Oldland Common, Bristol in the morning to welcome the Chinese language teaching assistants which I bring into the region's schools each year and will be in Truro in the evening, speaking at a climate change mitigation event in the cathedral.

Tomorrow I'll be in Sherborne at lunchtime and at Wells Cathedral School in the evening.

A reader of the UK press could be forgiven for thinking that the only EU-related issue of interest this week has been the presence of the Tories' scary new friends at their party conference. Those visiting the BBC's website, which (together with the Financial Times) is the closest we get to intelligent coverage of Brussels, might also have seen that EU cartel-buster Neelie Kroes (NL, Liberal) has just fined three European and three Japanese firms a total of nearly 100 million euros for ripping off the taxpayer by rigging the market in power transformers. Possibly the most important news to come out of Brussels has been largely overlooked: it was the announcement on Wednesday of the funding for the EU's energy technology plan which was approved by Parliament in July. Predicting the need for some fifty billion euros worth of investment in R&D over the next decade, it sets out a plan for investment in six areas of low carbon technology: wind energy, solar energy, bio-energy, interconnecting electricity grids, carbon capture and storage and (yes, I winced too) fourth generation nuclear power reactors.

Other recent news includes an agreement to extend until July 2011 the current regime for junior doctors' hours for the UK, the Netherlands and Hungary; and failure to reach a new agreement on drivers' working hours which would cover both employed and self-employed.

One success to chalk up is that we have now put our 2 millionth student into the Erasmus student exchange programme. If you've not yet seen it, watch the wonderful film 'Auberge Espagnol' about this scheme! It does far more for European co-operation than any treaty.

Finally, this week's mind boggler: Europol's counter-terrorism unit has warned about the danger of terrorists concealing bombs in suppositories after this method was used for an Al-Qaida suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia in August. They say that such bombs go undetected by security scanners and can be detonated using a mobile phone.