Graham's blog Friday 12 March 2010

Published on Fri 12th Mar 2010

Parliament has been in Strasbourg this week for four days of formal debates and votes. We had our first debate with external relations commissioner and EU high representative Baroness Catherine Ashton on foreign policy. I think she acquitted herself well. Despite starting with virtually no support she has gathered good people around her and gave a competent, if not quite visionary, view of her plans to set up the EU diplomatic service which our governments committed themselves to in the Lisbon Treaty. She has taken a lot of flack, some of which a man would not have received. I appealed to colleagues, on International Women's Day, at least to give her a fair hearing.

My week has involved meetings with Commissioners Hedegaard and de Gucht, responsible for climate change and trade respectively, to be briefed before my visit to Delhi next week in my new role as Chairman of Parliament's delegation for relations with India; with EU Enlargement Commissioner Fuele, to discuss northern Cyprus; and with agriculture Commissioner Ciolos, to discuss applications from south west food producers for protected geographical origin status. The latter may sound very technical, but readers from Devon and Cornwall might have picked up from local radio and TV that I marked St Piran's day by taking up the cudgels to have the Cornish pasty recognised as a traditional local delicacy and protected from competition by cheap imports purporting to be Cornish. (OK, but it makes a change from some of the dossiers I work on.)

On Tuesday afternoon the Commission presented to parliament its post-Copenhagen strategy for reaching global agreement to combat climate change. It recognises that some progress was made in Copenhagen, recommits the EU to its own carbon reduction targets and EUR 2.4 bn in aid to help poor countries do the same and sets out ideas for persuading other countries to agree to the same.

There's been some discussion here of the creation of a European Monetary Fund, along the lines of the IMF, to help countries like Greece if they get into trouble. Barroso confirmed at Question Time on Wednesday that the Commission would look into it. It would not be ready in time to help in Greece's current difficulties, but it shows a recognition that some mechanism is needed to stop the failure of one euro-zone country dragging others down with it.

My weekend schedule has been hastily re-arranged to allow me to be at LibDem Party Conference in Birmingham on Saturday morning. I cannot yet tell you why, but it is thanks to success in something I've been working on in Brussels and Strasbourg for a while. If you follow the conference news you should pick it up.