February 2001

The European Blue Flag for approved bathing waters is not awarded easily or without a great deal of effort on the part of those who receive it. As someone who lives near St Andrews, one of whose beaches has received this coveted award, I am aware how sought after it is by local authorities and tourist bodies whose job it is to encourage visitors. The good news is that the European Commission is now seeking to rationalise the number of hoops through which authorities have to jump in order to determine whether a beach reaches the required, even more robust, standards. It is hoped this will be achieved by using simpler measurements and tools for making the assessment.

A major anniversary has just been celebrated in Berlin. Ten years ago, for the first time since 1933, the Federal German Parliament met in the re-unified city of Berlin. It was this tenth anniversary which members of my political party were in Berlin to celebrate recently. While anniversaries encourage us to look back, we were very much looking to the future at this event. We had a crowded schedule including meetings in the historic and spectacularly renovated (by a British architect) Reichstag and discussions on subjects as diverse as the health risks of using depleted uranium and how to speed up membership of the countries which are applying to join the EU. One very moving element of the visit was a presentation to my constituent Rhoda Paterson Fyfe, from Lundin Links in Fife, whose husband was killed in Germany in 1954 while bringing food and provisions to the citizens of Berlin. Rhoda had been invited with their son Stephen to receive a presentation from the mayor of Berlin on behalf of its citizens to mark the contribution made by British people like her husband to Berlin's survival and Berliners' freedom. The following day the Germans arranged for Rhoda and Stephen to visit the village in the former East Germany where her husband's plane crashed, and to meet eyewitnesses from 47 years ago. This was emotional for everyone but helped also to cement relations between our countries and to symbolise our continuing interdependence.

The European Commission has proposed better minimum living conditions for pigs kept in intensive units. These would ban the use of individual stalls for sows during pregnancy up to seven days before farrowing, as well as the tethering of sows. New regulations are also proposed to ensure the animals can at least turn around in their stalls and have permanent access to rooting materials and fibre food. These measures have to be welcomed as the intensification of pig farming has led to practices that caused unnecessary suffering and were increasingly proving to be counterproductive. Even if it seems that the EU seems is coming in at the pig's tail on this issue, it is good news for British pig farmers as this brings welfare conditions in other EU countries up to British standards.

MEPs continue to try to bust some of the myths about Europe. One headline brought to my attention recently - "Dead pets must be pressure-cooked, Brussels officials say" - raised a wry smile. According to the Sunday Telegraph "…the European Union's waste incineration directive means it is legal to bury dead pets only after they have been pressure cooked at 130 degrees Centigrade for half an hour." The truth is that the animal waste Directive, which has been in force since 1992, merely stipulates that `high risk material' such as BSE infected cows, be disposed of appropriately in an approved processing plant! Nothing in the Directive prevents dead pets, which do not present a serious risk of spreading communicable diseases, being laid to rest in the normal way.