Using your mobile phone abroad will be cheaper from this summer after MEPs voted to cut roaming charges again.
The new limits set in the European Parliament mean phone calls will cost no more than 28p per minute, while the cap on SMS charges is down to 8p per message. Continue reading
Chris Davies Summer Survey 2012
Chris Davies has launched his summer members survey by posting a copy to ever member in the North West.
If you need more copies you can click the link above
1. This week is the vote in Environment Committee on Chris’s Opinion on the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. With over 500 amendments tabled to his Opinion – which consisted of 105 itself! – there has been a lot of work done trying to get compromise positions agreed with those MEPs responsible for following the Opinion for their political groups. With fingers crossed, the final text that will be voted in the Environment Committee on 8 May will send a strong signal to the MEPs in the Fisheries Committee (in which Chris is also a member), whose votes on the Regulation will come in July, that the time has come for radical change and a sustainable fisheries policy for the future.
2. Also on Tuesday 8 May, Chris will be speaking in a lunch debate on the role of biofuels and unconventional oil in fuelling the Europeof the future. These ‘unconventional oils’ include tar sands, a subject that Chris has already been involved in (see this Guardian article for more information).
3. Later the same day, Chris will be interviewed by a Danish TV company for a programme that they are planning to film between Brussels and Palestine based on Chris’s recent discovery through a series of parliamentary questions to the Commission of the huge losses incurred by the EU through the destruction by Israeli Defence Forces of EU-funded projects in Palestine.
4. Directly after this, Chris is meeting with the new CEO of IETA (the International Emissions Trading Association), Dirk Forrister. Forrister was part of theClintonadministration and is already well known to figures both in the public and private sectors.
5. On Wednesday Chris will attend a seminar co-hosted by two Bureau members in his Fish For the Future cross-party group, Anna Rosbach (Danish, ECR) and Mikael Gustafsson (Swedish, GUE/NGL). The theme of this seminar is Sustainable Aquaculture, which form an important part of the CFP reform package. Importantly, there will be input from both consumer and market organisations. For more information on the Fish For the Future group and the work it is doing to promote a sustainable CFP reform, go to www.fishforthefuture.eu
Next week is a dedicated ‘Green Week’ in Parliament. Green Weeks (so-called because of the colour given to them on the Parliamentary calendar) are officially known as ‘Constituency Weeks’ and are timetabled in a few times in the year to enable MEPs to spend important time to their constituencies.
Because this week corresponds with the run-up to the election, Chris will be back in the North West alongside other dedicated Lib Dem councillors, members and supporters campaigning hard in anticipation of the local elections on the 3rd May.
Do not hesitate to get in contact if you wish to join him!
North West England Euro-MP Chris Davies is joining his European Liberal colleagues to defeat legislation that could reduce internet freedom.
The Lib Dem group in the European Parliament holds the swing 84 votes to ensure that ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) will not make it through the Brussels based assembly.
The law was intended to prevent illegal downloading and copying of films and music but concerns were expressed by free speech campaigners that ACTA could have been used by Government’s to crack down on everyday internet use.
European internet users have been lobbying MEPs against the proposed new law that could have affected the way North West England people surf the web.
Said Davies, “I have had thousands of emails from all over the North West about ACTA and its potential impact on ordinary internet users.
“Piracy of copyrighted work is wrong but there are better ways of fighting it than making criminals out of everyone who goes online.
“I’m pleased that my political colleagues agree with my constituents that ACTA could have restricted freedom and should be thrown out.”
1. At the start of what will be a very busy week, Chris will be meeting with representatives from Baltic Sea 2020, a non-governmental organisation who have agreed to offer secretarial support to Chris’s cross-party Fish For the Future group. With just a few short months to convince 754 MEPs of the desperate need for an overhaul of the Common Fisheries Policy, including a ban on the wasteful practice of discarding, the meeting will finalise the Fish For the Future action plan.
2. It is committee week in Brussels, and Chris will therefore be attending four days of Fisheries (PECH) and Environment (ENVI) Committee meetings. On Monday and Tuesday in the Fisheries Committee there will be discussions on all the key aspects of CFP reform, including on small scale fishing, the EU’s external fishing policy, and the Basic Regulation of the CFP itself.
3. In Environment Committee there will be a vote on shark finning. Chris is shadow rapporteur for this same issue in the Fisheries committee.
While in Environment committee the rapporteur supports the Commission’s proposal for a fins-attached approach (the only way to ensure the shameful practice of finning cannot take place), the rapporteur in Fisheries is strongly against it. We hope that the vote in ENVI will send a strong signal to colleagues in PECH to support the Commission!
4. On Tuesday afternoon Chris will be speaking at an event on the extraction of shale gas (‘fracking’). Given the controversy over the trials of this technology in the North West last year, the conclusions of the discussion will be very interesting.
5. Later that day, Chris will be speaking at another event on the development of emissions trading in China. China has recently undertaken pilot projects in emissions trading, and will be a major player in the field of sustainable energy in the years to come.
6. As a demonstration of how varied an MEP’s day often is, Chris will be going straight from this debate on emissions trading in China to an event hosted by the Born Free Foundation on the EU Zoo inquiry, its achievements and aspirations for the near future.
7. This event comes in the same week that Chris will ask an oral question in the Environment Committee on the state of European Zoos. An oral question requires a Commissioner to come to committee to answer it in person.
8. On Wednesday, Chris is speaking at another event. This time it is entitled ‘Sustainable fisheries – getting incentives right’ and concerns the reform of the CFP. One of the Commission’s proposals was for incentives to fishermen to use and innovate more selective fishing gears, in order that bycatches – which can in some cases be larger than the targeted catch! – can be eliminated. This money would come partly from putting an end to the current failed practice of funding fishermen to scrap their vessels.
9. On Thursday Chris has been asked to speak at another event – this time on means to achieve a low carbon economy. A study by Bloomberg has concluded that contrary to some beliefs, the cost of achieving a more ambitious 30% – instead of 20% – target for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would be negligible and that Central and Eastern European countries – who continue to rely heavily on fossil fuel technologies – would even be beneficiaries of a more ambitious target.
10. The last thing on Chris’s Brussels agenda is to attend Environment Committee, where he will have the chance on Thursday afternoon to question the Environment Commissioner Connie Hedegaard on important issues the Committee is currently dealing with.
An early Christmas present was given to budding entrepreneurs when UKIP deputy leader, Paul Nuttall, declared that the EU would force them to pay €25,000 before setting up a small business. “This is totally unnecessary EU interference,” he declared. “It will have a devastating effect.” It is “outrageous”.
The EU requirement in fact applies only to Public Limited Companies that must have a minimum of £25,000 of shares available for trade, has existed since the 1970s, and is exceeded by British law that requires a minimum of £50,000. It has nothing to do with small businesses.
Garden and farm pesticides accused of leading to the death of bees should be banned, says a North West MEP.
Liberal Democrat Chris Davies is calling for the European Commission to take urgent action to restrict the use of neonicotinoid pesticides after new scientific reports confirmed links between their use and the decline in bee numbers.
Pesticides containing neonicotinoids are widely available in garden centres and do not carry warning labels about their potential effect on bee numbers.
Environmental campaigners are calling for direct action against garden centres that continue to sell the products.
They want shoppers to cause confusion by taking boxes of neonicotinoid pesticides to the till in Garden Centres and then refusing to pay for them.
But Davies says the whole of Europe should follow the example of France and Germany where restrictions on the chemicals have been introduced.
The MEP has cross-party backing for a study into the consequences of a ban to be carried out, and is insisting that the Commissioner concerned must respond to the issue in the European Parliament.
Davies said: “Bees are not only a much-loved part of garden life but vitally important to farmers.
“Gardeners could be using pesticides on this year’s flowers that mean that next year there won’t be any flowers at all.”
Latest research appears to confirm that neonicotinoid pesticides weaken the resistance of bees, leaving them vulnerable to other threats that they would normally survive.
1. Next week Chris heads to Strasbourg for the plenary session. This means packing a trunk of everything you might need – pens and paper included – today (Friday) ready to be taken and shipped down in advance. Along with the majority of MEPs, Chris is opposed to this practice and he has voted repeatedly to end it. For more details visit http://www.singleseat.eu/
2. In the ALDE Group meeting on Tuesday afternoon Chris will have the opportunity to pose questions to Baroness Ashton, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs. The exchange of views precedes King Abdullah of Jordan coming to the plenary session on Wednesday.
3. The first shadows meeting to discuss compromises on the over 500 amendments tabled to Chris’s Opinion on the Reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (presented in Environment Committee) will be on Wednesday. Chris will sit down with representatives from the EPP, S&D, ECR and GUE/NGL.
4. On Wednesday Chris will also be attending a debate with President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, and Mr Draghi, President of the ECB, on the subject ‘means to combat the economic crisis, particularly in the Eurozone’.
5. Later on Wednesday Chris will chair the regular Fish For the Future Bureau meeting. Set up by Chris just over a year ago, the cross-party group is fighting in Parliament for a long-term, sustainable reform of the Common Fisheries Policy.
