Graham's blog Friday 2 July 2010

Published on Fri 2nd Jul 2010

The EP's Liberal group met in Bilbao this week, at the invitation of our colleagues in the Basque National Party. In addition to our normal business they were able to show us the achievements of the Basque country in economic and social development, which are impressive. To me, it showed all the arguments for effective regional government with democratic oversight and control, which added poignancy to the meeting I had with representatives of Gloucestershire First (in Brussels, on Thursday) at which we discussed the likely impact of the abolition of the RDAs and the establishment of LEPs on the south west of England's ability to achieve similar.

The decision by Moscow seven days ago to re-commence gas supplies to Belarus has come as a relief to those EU countries who receive supplies via Belarus and has again highlighted the EU's dangerous reliance on Russia and the transit countries for oil and gas. I am in London today talking to a group of business people about the potential for an electricity supergrid to cover the whole of EU territory. If we had an electricity distribution network as widespread as that for gas, the potential for development of renewable energies would be much greater. For south west England it would open up huge potential.

On Tuesday our Agriculture and Fisheries ministers met. The former discussed the authorisation of six varieties of genetically modified maize, but - as usual - found no qualified majority for approving it, which means that the European Commission will decide in principle and then allow individual member states to decide for themselves. But I sense that the pressure for approval at EU level of GM crops, particularly for animal feed, is growing. The president of the European Commission appears to be taking a more hard line approach in their favour. In principle Liberal Democrats should have nothing against the scientific progress implicit in GM foods: but the sinister activities of companies like Monsanto, which has offered ravaged Haiti 475 tonnes of GM seed (476,000 of maize and 2,000 of vegetable seed, to be more precise) with a 12 month terminator gene, thus making Haitian farmers dependent on buying successive years of crop seed, only increase suspicions of the industry.

Three of the UK's chickens are coming home to roost; the first is that we are in trouble with the European Commission for failing to comply with social security laws. The UK currently denies some social benefits to British citizens who are resident elsewhere in the EU. The European Commission is challenging this saying it is contrary to the principal of free movement. Second, the European Court of Justice in a preliminary ruling has upheld the Council's decision to refuse the UK the right to vote in matters relating to the EU's visa information system. Since the UK does not participate in this part of the Schengen convention, we have no right to try to influence the rules, they argue. Third, Britain's failure to teach foreign languages properly is now having a serious impact on our representation in European Civil Service posts. The UK has more than 12% of the EU population but fewer than 2% of junior staff in the EC. Our candidates simply do not have sufficient language skills. Foreign Secretary William Hague has had the gall to call for a relaxation of the rules for British candidates.

Israel's foreign minister has invited his European colleagues to visit Gaza to show them the humanitarian situation there. This has rightly been met with much scepticism. The European Parliament is refusing to approve a new protocol on trade with Israel, negotiated by the Commission and the Member State, until the humanitarian situation improves.

Tomorrow I will be in Exeter and South Devon at constituency functions, next week Parliament is in Strasbourg where we vote on, among other things, the controversial new banking regulation proposals.