Cllr Adrian Smith

Dear Friend
Lots going on in Europe. But I restrict this report to two major events, because otherwise it would be too long.

The Lisbon Treaty
will come into effect, thank goodness, on 1st December. It will improve the way the EU of 27 operates.
a. More democratic control as the European Parliament, representing the people, takes a full half-share control of all legislation. See http://euobserver.com/9/29036/?rk=1 And the other chamber, the Council, representing the 27 governments, must hold its meetings in public from now on and taking more votes by majority voting.
b. no “President of Europe”, a concept invented by the media and by euro-sceptics to alarm the public and to sell newspapers. The Council will have a president for two and a half years who will provide much-needed continuity (against the habit of rotating the presidency every six months around the countries).
c. the way the Council president, and the “Foreign Minister” were chosen reveals how continental politics works (which is not understood by winner-takes-all in the UK).
The Christian-Democrats got first pick because they are the largest party across the EU. They wanted someone from a small state who would not overshadow Merkel or Sarkosy - hence their Belgian Van Rompuy. They now have the current presidents of the Parliament (Polish Busek) and of the Commission (Portuguese Barroso). Second in line were the Socialists who could choose the Foreign Minister : they conferred among themselves and compromised on Cathy Ashton from the UK. The Liberals, the third party across Europe, will get a higher than justified number of the 27 new Commissioners. The euro-sceptic parties naturally get nothing.
The UK Conservatives, having quit their alliance with the CDs, have excluded themselves from any EU power for many years to come until they come to their senses.
d. the 27 new Commissioners are now being nominated, one from each member state. Their portfolios will be allocated to them by Barroso. Between 11 and 19 January, each will be subjected to a public live on-the-stand three-hour interrogation before a European Parliament committee. Then the full parliament will, or not, vote each of them into office until 2014 (but can cause any of them to be dismissed later if they lose the confidence of a majority of MEPs).
e. the EU’s External Acton Service will be developed. It means EU representative offices throughout the world. This will, eventually, save a lot of money for taxpayers, because the current arrangement of 27 separate European embassies in every world capital but speaking with only one voice (that of the current Council presidency) is wasteful and “duplicated” (27 times).
PS there is an interesting rumour that what forced the recalcitrant Czech President, Klaus, to suddenly give up his resistance and sign was…a call from Washington DC, telling him to stop blocking a united Europe which the USA would prefer to have at its side.

The world conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen from 4-18 December
18-20,000 people are expected to fly in for the conference. Prices of hotel rooms have tripled. 65 heads of government will be there plus Obama and Wen of China.

Is our planet warming-up due to gas emissions caused by human activity ?
Nothing is certain. Until the planet boils, nobody cannot be 100% certain. The scientific consensus is that it is warming up and the warming is 90% likely to be caused by human beings. If experts tell you that “your airplane is 90% likely to crash but you are free to ignore our warning and go ahead and board”, what do you do ? Two MEPs in our region, the Tories’ Helmer and UKIP’s Clark say it is not caused by humans.. Helmer called me a liar on live tv in June for revealing his stance - yet this week in the parliament he is publicising a seminar called “Nature, not Human Activity, rules the Climate”.
Nick Griffin of the BNP said this week in the parliament that it is all a conspiracy to bring in world government.

What is the agenda at Copenhagen ?
During the two weeks there are two separate negotiations happening at the same time.
The first week is open and, apparently, anybody can attend and give their opinion in the working-parties. In the second week, more senior people take over and the meetings are closed. But the seniors will lack the detailed knowledge, so the outcome can only be a general political agreement with the details filled in later.
One negotiation is the ongoing follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol by its signatories.
The other negotiation is more general but China, India and the USA are involved. (How different the situation might be if the “hanging chad votes” in Florida in1992 had not got George Bush Jr elected and instead Al Gore had become president).
Why two separate negotiations ? The USA refuses to join the Kyoto Protocol. China and India refuse to accept reductions.

Personalities
Chairing the world conference is the Danish government.
The EU works as a single team, with one negotiator for all five hundred million of us. He is a bespectacled Spaniard called Artur Runge-Metzger.

Know Your Acronyms
If you decide to follow the conference on-line there will be many acronyms being used.
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
AWGKP Ad-hoc Working Group on the Kyoto Protocol
LULUCF Land Use, Land-Use Change, and Forestry
LCA Long Term Cooperative Action
MRV Motivation, Reporting, Verification
EST Environmentally Sound Technologies
SLTV Shared Long Term Vision

Tricky negotiating points
- Oil-exporting countries want to be compensated for loss of future revenue
- Russia wants credit for its major reductions in emissions since 1990 (due to the collapse of its economy).
- How to count all the trees in all the forests ? (important because they count as “off-sets” against emissions)
- Which gases to be included beside Carbon Dioxide ?
- Who will pay ? We in the developed world will pay, but how much will come from governments and how much from the private sector ?
- Do governments of developed countries own technology and intellectual property rights ?
- Who will be in charge of the financial fund, worth perhaps 200 billion?
- What does “legally-binding” mean ? (If China or the USA re-neg on the deal later, do the rest of the world have to invade them ?)

The likely outcome ?
The hope is for a single political agreement on 18 December. The details would be filled in during 2010 but may take until 2012 for one final document to be in place and signed by all countries of the world. Denmark, as the chair, has to produce a 5-8 page document by 18th December. Cynics suggest that it is already drafted. Negotiations may continue through the night until 5am on the last morning of the second week, because at the last conference Russian officials refused to wake up Putin during the night.