Gary Titley, MEP - "To Boldly Go To €uroland!"

This is the text of a talk given by Heaton & Lostock Branch member Gary Titley, MEP and Leader of the Brish Labour Group in the European Parliament at the Party AGM on 15th January 2004.

Gary said that the Chinese have a saying that we are "living in interesting times" and that is certainly how things are at present. He referred to the horrendous incident in which he had been sent a letter bomb. It had been partially opened by Charo who had noticed something wrong and had had the presence of mind to get out of the office quickly. A certain amount of damage had been done and he and his staff had been severely shocked. In radio interviews the UK Independence Party refused to denounce the attack and it is apparent that UKIP's right wing leadership almost certainly approve of such attacks.

As well as this and similar attacks this is, as well, a difficult time for the EU. On May 1st 10 new members join, mostly from Eastern Europe, plus Cyprus and Malta. The most important priority is to agree how the Union will make decisions. The structure in use was designed for only six members, works poorly for 15 and will be impossible when there are 25.

Originally, all decisions had to be unanimous but then "qualified majority voting" was introduced and the Maastricht treaty, followed by those from Amsterdam and Nice, expanded on this. These treaties have become more and more difficult to get agreement on. Therefore steps were taken to "tidy up" the system and talks were undertaken with all 25 eventual members plus Bulgaria and Romania (the next probable EU members). A convention met for 18 months to draw up a Constitutional Treaty to clarify the position and to decide what the EU can and can't do.

The Treaty gives more power to the European Parliament and codifies the ways in which countries are involved in decision making. The question of the Presidency was also covered. The UK thought that there should be a full time President of the Council, effectively a glorified Chair of the Council.

The most contentious area of the new treaty is that of majority voting. Except for the areas of treaty making and taxation it had been proposed that there should be majority voting on all issues. But the voting system was to have been weighted and the Nice treaty proposed a horrendously complex system which gave Poland more votes than Germany!

One of the problems is that the new member states are mostly very small so a different system was proposed. Poland and Spain wouldn't accept the proposed changes to the original formula because it would have reduced the influence that the Nice treaty had given them. As a result, the recent summit collapsed without agreement, the existing decision making structure remains and it won't work. The Irish now have the Presidency and are trying to get people together to sort out the mess. The Irish PM is hopeful that there will be a solution by the end of the year.

All of this means that we are spending all our time talking about how we should be doing things rather than what we should be doing.

There is an urgent need to revitalise the economies of many of the EU states, make more jobs and worthwhile jobs and make the EU economy the most dynamic in the world by 2010. The aim is to have 70% of the population in work. The US and UK have this proportion but in most EU states it's only 60% or so. There need to be active policies to get the long term unemployed back to work and we need to focus on completing the single market, especially the service sector which, in some states, is still very restricted.

The funding of the EU is another contentious issue. There is a funding package in place until 2006. The EU budget is £80 billion. This seems a lot but it's less than the UK spends annually on Social Security. There is also a crisis in the Euro because some countries are not meeting the requirements of the Pact on Growth and Stability (the Stability Pact). Ironically, Germany was the first country to have problems (arising from reunification), the French are having similar difficulties and have said that they can't meet the requirements of the Stability Pact.

It's thought that the Pact is too rigid and needs to be rewritten to make it more flexible. The EU Governments have decided that they won't do anything about Germany and France's failure to abide by the Pact but the Commission are taking the governments to court. This, Gary believed, is a big mistake.

Gary then spoke about this year's European Parliament elections. He said that our approach will be to remind people what the EU means with the three main points being equality, the economy and jobs and security.

Some of the main benefits to UK workers have been: a legal entitlement to paid holidays, 48 hour maximum working week, maternity benefits for women and treatment of part time workers. There has been a huge increase in environmental protection, increased consumer rights and better consumer protection.

There is huge travel between the UK and other EU states with over 40 million journeys expected this year. There is freedom of movement of goods, more than 10,000 British students are studying in EU states, 250,000 UK pensioners live in other EU states and all states must introduce far reaching anti-discrimination legislation this year.

The EU is Britain's major trading partner. We have four times as much trade with EU states as we do with the USA and more trade with France than with the whole of the Commonwealth.

In the area of security all the old animosities have had to be put aside, Europe is at peace, there are no border disputes and minorities are being treated properly. Compare that with what happened in another Federation - Yugoslavia! In addition we are able to deal more effectively with crime and against illegal immigration.

A lot of money from the EU goes into development projects, especially in the poorer South European/Mediterranean states and in some regions of the north. Leaflets have been prepared "What the EU has done in Bolton" and these will be used as part of the Euroelection campaign.

Gary said that we have a unique chance to talk about "Team Labour" this year with the Euroelections and all out Council elections taking place on the same day. This programme has to take place at local, national and European level. We need to have a progressive majority in the European Parliament and on Bolton Council if we are to make both the EU and our own Borough a better place for all its citizens.

In contrast the Tories are still intent on withdrawal from the EU and they'd like us to join the USA, Canada and Mexico in NAFTA. One of the eye openers about the recent bomb incident was some really horrible e-mails from the UKIP who supported the sentiments behind the bomb and who are in cahoots with the BNP.

There was further discussion of a number of topics.

The Chair thanked Gary for his talk and members for participating in the discussion.

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