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Update on the new Parliament from Bill Newton Dunn MEP
October 25, 2009 4:13 PM
We completed a relatively quiet plenary week in Strasbourg. Normally, at this stage of a newly elected parliament, the major task is to hold individual hearings of the 27 candidate Commissioners who would have been proposed, one by each national parliament (or government, in truth). But this cannot happen because the Lisbon Treaty is still not in effect. If the President of the Czech Republic signs it soon, then the planning is that the Treaty will come into force from 1st January. Meanwhile the new candidate Commissioners will be interrogated probably next month - and then MEPs will vote them into office for five years, or reject them.
Also in preparation for the Lisbon Treaty coming into effect, the other legislative chamber, the Council, will be debating who they want as their first "president" to serve for two and a half years. Blair is touted for the job by the British newspapers who love to create controversery in order to sell their papers. But I doubt very much that he will get the job: he talked nicely about Europe but did very little to move the UK to the centre and he attacked Iraq with George Bush. Whoever is appointed, they will NOT be President of Europe (as the UK press also loves to proclaim). He or she will simply be the president of that chamber. The Parliament has its own president, Jerzy Busek from Poland, and the Commission has its president, Jose Manuel Barroso from Portugal.
The first reading of the EU's 2010 Budget has gone smoothly. Now the draft passes to the Council of Ministers for their second reading - and finally back to us for our second reading in December.
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