Please find below the latest newsletter from Graham Watson, our Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament for South West England and Gibraltar:

Greetings,

This week has been a UK school holiday but not a European Parliament holiday week. We resumed on Tuesday, as Gordon Brown went to the Palace to seek a dissolution of the House of Commons.

Most of my week has been spent on research and action relating to constituency casework involving three separate directorates general, some of whose officials were still on holiday. I have welcomed to Brussels two separate groups of visitors: the Wells Twinning Association from Somerset and the European Atlantic Movement, whose numbers included constituents of mine from Devon. I have also attended a meeting of Parliament’s delegation for relations with China, chaired a meeting of our delegation for relations with India (to prepare a forthcoming visit there) and spoken at a conference sponsored by the European Commission on EU-Asia relations.

Council President Herman van Rompuy and Commissioner Marcus Sefkovic (standing in for Barroso, who suffered a family bereavement) reported to MEPs on the EU heads of state and government summit on 25 and 26 March. Debate about this focussed on Greece’s deficit and whether the action taken will rescue the country from the danger of bankruptcy: signs are not promising. Our leader, Guy Verhofstadt, called for the issuance of bonds by the European Central Bank as a way of bringing down the cost of borrowing for everybody, not just Greece.

There has been renewed discussion of the need better to integrate into society the Roma people in advance of a Roma summit yesterday in Cordoba. The Commission published a communication about the funds available to help with such work; the Spanish Social Affairs minister pointed out that the Roma have been a part of European society for over a thousand years and are still subject to violence and discrimination. MEPs have been shocked at the way in which the Italian police have recently dealt with Roma encampments.

The impressive Janez Potocnik, now Commissioner for the Environment, presented his work programme to our environment committee on Wednesday. He hopes to preserve and strengthen the EU’s ecosystems, make us more energy-efficient and improve the implementation of environmental laws. He spoke of ‘a common sense revolution’ and ‘ a life cycle approach to the products and services we buy’.

Our constitutional affairs committee has agreed how to integrate into parliament the extra 18 MEPs provided for in the Lisbon Treaty, which was not in force at the time of last year’s elections. They will make recommendations shortly to the House to increase the total number of MEPs to 754 (about 100 more than at Westminster).

I’ll be spending my weekend thinking more of Westminster than of Brussels. With a general election campaign underway there is plenty to do.

Regards,
Graham

Graham Watson MEP
Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament for South West England and Gibraltar