A Europe Less Remote?

Last night I attended an interesting event at the Pierhead building in Cardiff. Organised by the Foreign Policy Centre and the EC Representative in the UK, the event was a debate entitled Reconnecting the European Parliament and its People, it was chaired by former First Minister, Rhodri Morgan AM and featured all four of Wales’ MEPs together with Dr Adam Marshall of the British Chambers of Commerce.

Rhodri Morgan opened with an explanation of territorial cohesion and the recent announcement that the allocation of EU structural funds from 2013 would not be the sole responsibility of members’ national governments, the European Parliament having been given “co-decision” rights. This is likely to result in all 27 member countries receiving structural funds to address regional economic disparity, rather than the bulk structural funding being allocated to the new Eastern European members as had been feared. We then had eight minutes from each of the MEPs.

Dr Kay Swinburne acknowledged that for many of its citizens, the European Union seems remote and that in general, MEPs were not engaging well enough. Few people understood the role of MEPs and that they were perceived differently from member state to member state. She emphasised that compromise was important in the European Parliament and that much of her work involves negotiation. She endeavours to spend as much time as possible in Wales and is very keen on visiting schools and businesses. Her priorities for the future included, Europe 2020, the completion of the Single market, Global warming/Climate change, a co-ordinated response to the financial crisis, less “gold plating” by national parliaments and a more open media coverage of EU issues.

Derek Vaughan pointed to the huge benefits that Wales derives from European legislation, particularly in the sphere of environmental and social matters. He emphasised the importance of EU structural funding for Wales especially in West Wales and the Valleys which qualify for convergence funding. He is seeking to secure transitional funding for those areas who are unfortunate enough to drop out of convergence.

Dr Adam Marshall was keen to impress on all four MEPs the importance of them engaging with businesses in Wales and emphasised that currently businesses feel isolated from the EU and powerless to influence its work. He concluded with a number of suggestions as to how the situation could be improved.

John Bufton, while keen to emphasise that he had not “gone native”, was significantly more constructive than one would expect from a UKIP member. He strongly attacked the lack of good media coverage on Europe and had found that letters to the editors of local newspapers were effective for getting his views across. However, I thought he was being quite disingenuous in trying to justify Nigel Farage’s imbecilic attack on Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council, as having been motivated only by a desire to secure press coverage for the European Parliament.


Nigel Farage being Nigel Farage

Finally, Jill Evans, the longest-serving of our four MEPs re-iterated much of what had already been said and pointed to her successful work in securing semi-official status for the Welsh language in the European parliament. She is keen that Wales should have a European Parliament Office in Wales.

All four MEPs were keen to emphasise that they were committed to working together for the benefit of Wales, having regular formal meetings as well as co-operating informally. There was limited time for questions afterwards and these turned on the future of the Euro, the possible enlargement of the EU, and the EU and Israel.

Overall, an enjoyable debate and well worth the effort of travelling to Cardiff for it.