May 19, 2005: Ely Standard - Manifesto
Pledge goes on first day
So Labour is starting as they mean to go on following the General Election.
With the New Westminster Parliament less that a day old,
they broke a manifesto pledge in which they promised to work with MEPs to
ensure EU regulations are proportionate.
The vote to scrap Britain's individual opt-out from a
regulation that denies people the flexibility to choose how many hours they
work was described by Tony Blair as "wrong" and "completely misguided".
Despite this, nothing was done to persuade Labour MEPSs
to vote to keep an opt-out clause that has wide spread support.
If Europe
is serious about reforming its economy to become more competitive,
it should be seeking to legislate in favour of flexibility and growth, not
in favour of excessive social regulation and red tape.
Once again the nanny state butts into an area where ordinary
people want the freedom to choose.
This week also saw the McCartney sisters
in Strasbourg to continue their campaign to bring to justice the
killers who murdered their brother Robert, outside a Belfast pub
four months ago.
A record 555 MEPs endorsed a resolution urging the European
Union to "grant a financial contribution towards he cost of legal fees incurred by the McCartney family in their quest for justice, by the way of civil proceedings" if the police service of Northern Ireland fails to bring a prosecution.
The funds for this, if approved, will come from the 1
million pounds budget set aside after the March 11 terrorist bombing in
Madrid which was not intended to finance individual cases.
Joseph Borrel, the European Parliament's president said: "Although there are no precedents for this, we have to start somewhere".
The motion condemns the IRA, calls on Sinn Fein to ensure
Mr McCartney's killers are brought to justice, and suggests that the EU
should contribute to the McCartney family's legal costs if civil proceedings
are brought against those allegedly responsible for his killing.
It also call for EU funds to be made available to all
those who are victims of terrorists.
A proposal has been approved by the
European Parliament that should make EU ports more resilient to
the threat of terrorists.
The creation of a standardised system will improve security.
Fears that the directive would impose excessive regulation
on businesses have been eased by a series of cross-party negotiations that
have simplified the proposals.
Surely this is what the European Parliament id for- working
together on issues that affect all of us.
Sadly, these measure that make is safer tend to be overshadowed
by pointless decisions about cheese.
The European court of Justice's advocate general supported
a European Commission decision to give feta cheese "Protected Designation of Origin" (PDO) status.
This means that countries that produce feta, including
the UK, Germany, and Denmark-will have to call their cheese something else.
This has prompted a rash of press release and articles
about it being "hard cheese" to producers who are "cheesed off".
It is difficult to know which is worse, the needless legislation,
or the excessive use of cheesy metaphors.
