Oct 25th-26th 2010 - Brussels Commentary Employment Committee

25 October 2010

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Brussels Commentary Employment Committee 25th - 26th Oct 2010

I remarked in an earlier commentary that the EU was tightening up; its systems and regulations are becoming more intrusive and more difficult to unpick. At the same time work in the Employment Committee is becoming less easy to combat. Reports are becoming more intrusive but with fewer concrete ideas to get hold of. This week's debating list might serve to illustrate this deliberate move into the wild and woolly,- * Employment Policies in Economic Recovery by 2010 ( with an impenetrable presentation by Bruno Coquet, EMCO Chair ) * Implementation of the Services Directive * Study (with an 85 page book) ;- Mobility & integration of people with disabilities into the labour market. * Unlocking the potential of cultural and creative industries * The face of female poverty in the European Union * Towards adequate, sustainable and safe European pensions systems. * Presentation by the ETUC of the study "Climate change, the new industrial policies and ways out of the crisis" I hope you see what I mean, if this continues it means that the enthusiasts will persist and we will have more and more stupid and pointless directive foisted upon us.

Make no mistake, this committee has its committed Europhiles and, worse, the intense pursuers of issues. In among all this there were votes on the mobilisation of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund. The EGF was intended to help workers made redundant when a company relocated to somewhere outside the EU, but it now seems to apply when companies move within the EU. There were no less than 7 of these up for vote today. Of these 1 was an Irish company, while all the others were of the Netherlands. Would you be surprised to hear that today's President (Liz Lynne, Lib-Dem, West Midlands) chose to lump them all together into one vote. Result, passed by 34 - 2. And that's how your money goes.

I thought I'd finish with a newspaper clip you might not have seen, Letter to The Guardian by Glyn Ford, Labour MEP 1984-2009, In defence of a new military strategy;- "As a Labour party member and pro-European, can I congratulate David Cameron for having done more in a few days to advance a European common foreign and security policy than my party did in 13 years."

Derek Clark MEP Brussels 26th Oct 2010