STRASBOURG LETTER:MEPs staged their own little revolt by agreeing to change the European Parliament's calendar, perhaps saving up to €15m, writes CONOR POPE
“IT’S VERY big and very confusing,” a security guard at the European Parliament said with a wry smile this week. He wasn’t talking about the EU but about the six-year-old building in which he works.
Escher could scarcely have designed a more ridiculously complicated edifice to navigate around in his wildest nightmares, but it is to here the entire apparatus of Europe’s elected assembly legally must decamp once a month at a cost of about €20 million a time.
The cost of the monthly session came in for some withering criticism in the chamber this week with some MEPs questioning why it was necessary to come here so frequently.
Taking matters into their own hands – and against the will of their party leaders – MEPs approved changes to the parliament’s calendar.
They will now visit across 11 and not 12 months and will have two sessions in the same week next October, a move they say will save €15 million.
Apart from all this, the economy and the upheaval in North Africa dominated proceedings all week.
On Tuesday, one of the most senior members of the National Libyan Council briefed MEPs. He asked for military and humanitarian aid and pleaded with the EU to recognise it as the “only legitimate representative” of the Libyan people.
Mahmoud Jebril heads a three-member crisis committee aimed at streamlining the council’s decision-making process. He told a meeting hosted by Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe that Europe needed to make a choice “between the right of power and the power of right”.
A day later, the head of EU foreign policy Catherine Ashton said she had no mandate to recognise Libya’s rebel government but accepted that it was time for Col Gadafy to be sent “back into the cold”.
EU economics commissioner Olli Rehn told Irish MEPs that the European Commission now supported a reduction of the interest rates Ireland was being asked to pay on the European portion of the bailout.
In written responses to questions from Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell and Jim Higgins and Fianna Fáil’s Pat the Cope Gallagher, Mr Rehn also defended Europe’s role in the overheating of the Irish property market. He said the commission had repeatedly warned about the situation from as early as 2000.
The parliament overwhelmingly backed a “Robin Hood” tax on financial transactions. It is the second time it has passed such a non-binding resolution but keen parliament watchers are confident that this time the European Commission will respond more favourably to the vote – or at least not simply ignore it.
MEPs heard that the Tobin tax could raise €200 billion a year in Europe alone and almost three times that amount if it was passed at a global level.
Mr Mitchell welcomed legal advice casting doubt on the legality of euro bonds, which was presented to the economic affairs committee on which he sits. Not because he is against the bonds – he is very much in favour of them – but because it has clarified the position. He said he believed the EU would now come up with a creative way around the legal obstacles.
The EU’s response to the 2009 swine flu outbreak, which ranged from full-scale vaccination programmes in some member states to none at all in others, was also criticised for being disjointed and lacking transparency.
By April 2010, 12 months after the first outbreak was recorded in Europe, swine flu H1N1 had caused 2,900 deaths across the EU, compared with 40,000 for seasonal flu in a moderate year, the parliament heard.
As part of the resolution adopted yesterday, the parliament backed the cross-border group purchases of vaccines and suggested tighter safeguards against conflicts of interest.
It said declarations of interest by experts advising European health authorities should be published and proposed that full liability for vaccines must lie with the manufacturer, not with member states.