On Monday the governments of France and Germany held a joint cabinet meeting. This was not the first such occasion, but to give an idea of the extent to which they are committed to closer union, they discussed a plan to harmonise company taxation by 1 January next year. The Green Paper prepared by their civil servants recommends cutting company taxes but extending the tax base, or widening the taxman’s net. I am pleased to report that the UK and German governments will hold a joint cabinet meeting shortly, which I believe will be a first, but I doubt any plan of such nature will be on the agenda.

The EU is in a stand off with China over its new charges on airlines for their CO2 emissions. While the ECJ found in the EU’s favour against a challenge brought by US airlines, the Chinese government has simply forbidden its airlines to pay the tax. The International Air Transport Association is trying to bring the two sides together to agree a solution.

Greece was again on the EU’s agenda this week, for two reasons. The first is that it has started construction of a metal fence on its land border with Turkey to discourage illegal immigration. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom (Sweden, LD) frostily rejected a call from Greece to bear half the cost of the construction. The second is the ongoing debt saga. Finance ministers from the eurozone countries met in Brussels last night following an agreement on Wednesday by Greece’s three coalition partners to the second bailout plan which involves cuts in private sector wages and pensions, government spending cuts of 1.5% of GDP and cuts in civil service numbers. (24 hours earlier, when Liberal Democrat MEPs had been in Athens, such an outcome had looked highly improbable.)

Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos (Romania, EPP) came to speak to the EP’s Liberal Group on Wednesday. He outlined plans to promote exports of food products (through food quality schemes and other measures first suggested in a Green Paper last June). Though we were sceptical of spending more to support farmers, he pointed out that the EU’s agricultural exports now almost equal those of the USA, supporting over four million jobs and representing 6% of the EU’s GDP.

The European Aviation Safety Agency this week ordered checks on the wings of all Airbus A380 aircraft. Those which have flown more than 1300 flights must be checked within two months, since cracks were discovered on the wings of an A380 in this category. The checks will involve some 68 aircraft. The wings are made mainly in the UK.

I was pleased to welcome to Brussels this week UK Transport Minister Norman Baker MP, over for talks with Climate Change Commissioner Connie Hedegaard (Denmark, EPP); David Chalmers of the Kaleidoscope Trust, an international pressure group campaigning for LGBT rights in developing countries, who I took to see Development Aid Commissioner Andris Piebalgs (Latvia, officially EPP but really a Lib Dem); Jayne Bressington, a constituent campaigning for EU action on GIST cancers; and Andrew Wigley, a former staffer of mine who went on to have an illustrious career in the international business world and is now, at the age of 40 and to my great satisfaction, considering a move into politics.

Regards
Graham

Tags: airlines CO2 emissions, Greece, Green paper, The European Aviation Safety Agency

This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2012 at 13:49 and is filed under Party Life, Political issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.