WEEK IN STRASBOURG:SADLY, MATTERS Irish dominated the opening of the March session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, with members marking the killing of the two British soldiers in Antrim with a minute's silence at the behest of the president of the parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering, and condemnation of the killings from MEPs North and South.
The president condemned the attack as an utterly despicable act, as an attack on the democratic institutions of Northern Ireland and on the very basis of the free and democratic society of its people.
The issue was on the agenda again the following day after the third killing. Mairéad McGuinness, MEP for Ireland East, called for voices of reason to prevail and for the dangerous and violent few to be prevented from regressing the peace process.
Expressing sympathy for the family of Constable Stephen Paul Carroll and those of soldiers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar, the MEP said “their deaths are so deeply shocking because we had all hoped that we had moved beyond that point”.
While this month’s session should have been focused on financial matters it was clear the minds of many MEPs were already fixed on the upcoming elections, but some financial work was done ahead of the spring European Council and parliament votes on a series of reports on the commission’s economic recovery plan.
It approved tougher bank capital rules as part of a wider effort by the community to apply lessons learnt from the banking rescues in the credit crunch, and backed EU internal commissioner Charlie McCreevy’s proposal to limit how much one bank can lend to another to 25 per cent of the institution’s own funds.
The parliament also accepted the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee’s recommendations that banks be forced to retain a portion of securitised product – 5 per cent – in order to promote good underwriting standards and to set up a college of supervisors for the union’s cross-border banks to improve oversight.
Dublin Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa told parliament that Europe must now begin a new “post-McCreevy era of diligent and responsible regulation and supervision”.
Virtually all the Irish MEPs had their say on matters agricultural during the week and on the proposed new tolls for heavy goods vehicles. They also spoke on a new package which will tighten safety requirements for ships flying EU flags or in EU waters. The new rules will mean a permanent blacklisting of dangerous ships and tougher and more frequent inspections and an independent authority in each state with powers to launch rescues.
The parliament also had a lively debate on online gambling, and MEPs decided member states were capable of regulating the industry themselves.
They also adopted three resolutions on the candidate countries for accession and their progress in 2008, namely Croatia, Turkey and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. On Croatia, MEPs regretted accession negotiations had been blocked because of the border dispute with Slovenia.
The “continuous slowdown of the reform process” in Turkey, for the third consecutive year, was noted with concern by the parliament, and MEPs asked the council to decide on a date for the beginning of accession negotiations with Macedonia.