If bad news outstrips the good in politics, nowhere is this more acute than on the issue of Europe. Here, the bad news, whether justified or not, hits the headlines before the good news reaches party members and the public. Since my election in June 1999 as one of Labour’s 29 strong group, I have been struck by how much MEPs can, and do, contribute to the party’s programme to transform Britain.
The key to what Labour MEPs can now deliver lies in some dramatic changes to the European Union itself. The 1997 Amsterdam Treaty created a European Parliament which now has legislative power in whole areas of our lives: trade and industry, the environment, justice and home affairs, agriculture, the economy, workers’ rights, human rights and international development.
The visible effects of these new powers can be seen in the way that the last European Commission was sacked for fraud and mismanagement by the European Parliament and, since Labour came to power, the manner in which UK ministers have been more fully engaged with MEPs.
The change to the work of Labour MEPs falls into three areas:
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New ‘co-decision’ legal powers with the European Council in key areas of legislation.
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Labour MEPs’ involvement in tackling the modernisation of the European Union, especially the European Commission.
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Involvement in issues such as enlargement and the debate over economic and monetary union.
When Czech president Vaclav Havel addressed us in Strasbourg, he described the European Parliament, the only directly elected international parliament in the world, as ‘finding its soul and gaining a role’. Nowhere was this more noticeable than in the debates over whether the European Union should impose diplomatic sanctions against Austria following its election of a coalition government which included Jörg Haider’s far right Freedom Party. The standard of debate and the passions evident in the European Parliament suggested to me that I was in a chamber which understood its historical context.
So how do Labour MEPs deliver and fulfil the promise of a stronger European Parliament?
Take, for example, the work of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, of which I am a member. This year will see a groundbreaking race directive, which will ensure that every EU country will have to implement race relations legislation by 2002, and an Employment Directive which will improve legislation on disability, age, sexual orientation and religious discrimination. There has also been health and safety legislation, including rights for part-time workers and the Working Time Directive. There are countless other examples of MEPs’ work in delivering regional aid to our most deprived regions and contributing to the work of the Labour Government in communities throughout the UK. Similar advances can be seen in environmental and trade and industry legislation.
In all the work we do, Labour MEPs now work more closely than ever with Labour ministers. Under a new link system, most Labour MEPs work regularly with departmental ministers and negotiate and brief our ministers on particular areas. Recently, I was involved in meetings with Alan Milburn on the impact on the NHS of the Working Time Directive and with Tessa Jowell on the new Employment Directive. This liaison is vital to ensure that European laws fit well with our own programme for government and don’t conflict with our domestic agenda.
My hope is that Labour MEPs will be seen as an integral part of Labour’s ambitions to build a better Britain in our second term of government.