Tag Archives: European Parliament

Now we have proof: Richard Howitt is the most manically active MEP

When he’s not getting turfed out of Dale Farm, Labour MEP Richard Howitt seems to also be the most active of Labour’s MEPs in the European Parliament, at least thanks to one measure discovered using open data from Ron Patz.

The image below shows MEPs according to how many Intergroups in the EP they belong to, with only MEPs belonging to 2 or more groups shown. Intergroups are get-togethers of MEPs to talk about issues of interest the bridge across the political spectrum (the UK equivalents are All Party Groups), although the links on the diagram below show that the Tories (in black) are rather separate from the rest.

Of course this is far from a perfect measure of the level of activity of a MEP, but it does give some impression of the number of causes a politician is actively trying to represent in the EP. Full details of the data can be found at Ron’s blog.

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Tories seem to have found someone even more barking than Roger Helmer

Today’s good news: Roger Helmer is standing down as a Member of the European Parliament. He says its because he disagrees with nine-tenths of Tory policy, and his statements have become more and more shrill and reactionary over the years.

In the list-based election system used in the UK, it’s the next person on the East Midlands list for the Tories that gets the seat, and this is none other than Rupert Matthews, a man who seems to be even more barking than Helmer is.

You thought that was impossible? Try this for starters – the homepage of his website:

Click on the ‘Speaking’ page and you are presented with a series of topics on which Matthews can enlighten you, including:

Your Local Ghosts – What real ghosts are like – a talk adapted to your local area.

Medieval Women – How women led society in the world of chivalry.

Yeti! – Are the legendary man-apes of the world real?

The Biography of Father Christmas – A great seasonal favourite for December.

This is a man who compares the EU to the USSR on ConservativeHome, and – among the 150 books he claims to have authored – the summary of Can Britain leave the EU? A Warning from History states “We might yet see the panzers in Parliament Square”. The things he posts on Twitter are equally bizarre.

So much for the modern, presentable, compassionate Conservative Party!

[UPDATE - 1540] Andy Carling at New Europe has looked into Matthews’s ghost hunting exploits

NOTE: contrary to the impression given in this article, Roger Helmer stays as a MEP until the end of 2011. Rupert Matthews takes over after that.

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The anatomy of a story about the European Parliament and body scanners

I saw this tweet from @Bruce_Schneier, retweeted by @EvgenyMorozov:

German Police Call Airport Full-Body Scanners Useless http://is.gd/Et4yGI
05.08.2011 12:05 via liberation_frReplyRetweetFavorite
@Bruce_Schneier
Bruce Schneier RSS

This led me to Schneier’s piece about a Welt am Sonntag article about ineffectiveness of full body scanners in airport tests in Germany. One piece in particular caught my eye:

The European parliament backed on July 6 the deployment of body scanners at airports, but on condition that travellers have the right to refuse to walk through the controversial machines.

I was told in Amsterdam that there was no option. I either had to walk through the machines, or not fly.

So then, what’s up here?

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What does the EP do about an offensive e-mail? Delete it from staff inboxes remotely

As covered by England Expects (in French, e-mail now removed) and Guido Fawkes (in English), the European Parliament has been full of gossip this week as a result of a remarkable resignation e-mail from a member of staff that was copied to all 5000 or so people on the European Parliament’s main e-mail distribution list. As can be read in Guido’s post, the e-mail was written to the Secretary General of the European Parliament Klaus Welle, and Freddy Drexler, Welle’s Head of Cabinet (basically chief of staff). In short this is directed to the very top of the administration.

So this morning – two days after the e-mail was published – what do the top brass do?

I’m told by a source within the European Parliament that the offending e-mail has been deleted from the Inboxes of all staff overnight, and even deleted from folders if staff had chosen to file the message. They have even put in place a crude filter to stop the e-mail being forwarded – messages entitled “ma démission à cause de tout ce qui se passe au PE” do not get sent out.

I must stress that my source is a member of staff, not a Member of the European Parliament. But IT services of the European Parliament entering mailboxes and deleting messages sets a very dangerous precedent.

Secondly, this is precisely how not to handle an internal communications crisis – the very act of e-mail deletion prompts a further round of intrigue and outrage, which is – you would think – precisely the last thing Welle and the EP needs just now.

Thirdly, all of this is simply too late – I had been forwarded the original e-mail in a matter of hours after its publishing, and so too will dozens of people in the Brussels bubble. The cat is out of the bag so to speak (multi-lingual pun intended).

Last, this reaction also gives the impression of a cover up and – with rumours of unfair promotion in the EP staff having been around for years – that’s precisely the wrong way forward. These matters need to be investigated soberly and thoroughly. Time for Jerzy Buzek to step in?

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The European Parliament is being pro-EU, but not pro-EU democracy

There are two main issues at stake with the so-called ‘Six Pack’ of EU legislation designed to prevent eurozone countries overspending in future. The first is the amount of wriggle room to be given to states that break the rules, and the second is the extent to which states themselves (represented in the Council of the EU) are in control of policing the rules, as opposed to the role of the European Commission.

How is the European Parliament behaving?

Contrary to the wishes of the centre left and the greens, the European Parliament wants states to have little wriggle room on the first issue (as reported by EUObserver). This would – according to critics of the agreement – entrench austerity. On the second issue, to a great extent at the behest for former Belgian PM and leader of the liberals in the EP Guy Verhofstadt, the EP favours a solution where the Commission is largely in control.

Why is this?

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