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Plenary, 09 May 2002

09 May 2002 · S1 · Plenary

Item of business

Europe Day

Ewing, Dr Winnie SNP Highlands and Islands Watch on SPTV

I thank Irene Oldfather for getting this matter on the agenda. I spent 24 years in the European Parliament and, oddly enough, was nominated for the unelected Parliament by none other than Harold Wilson. I do not know whether he ever regretted that. I was then an elected member from 1979 until I came to the Scottish Parliament. I can hardly describe the enormous thrill I felt the first time I went into the European Parliament and saw the nations that had been at war all sitting not in nationalities but in political groupings. That thrill is still with me any time I even think about those experiences.

I was a child of the war with two brothers in great danger, one of whom was missing for three and a half years. Because we lived near a synagogue, there were at my school in Glasgow Jewish children who had been rescued from the gas ovens. To me, the war was the most dreadful thing. Throughout my childhood, my mother jumped when the doorbell rang. I became a passionate European because I could see that it was only by giving up some of our sovereignty together for joint purposes that we could possibly end war, which of course we have managed to do.

I am an enthusiastic European and that is how it will always be. I have seen enormous changes. The main change, I suppose, was the European Parliament's desire to acquire more powers. Enormous powers were added during my period there. The Parliament got powers of initiative, powers of compulsory consultation and powers to cross-examine the Commission, although it does not yet have power to select the commissioners.

When people used to tell me, "The European Parliament's just a talking shop," I used to get quite irritated. Who are we comparing it with? Certainly not with Westminster, where I also spent quite a number of years on two occasions. Rather, the European Parliament is a consensus Parliament. Our enemies being our Governments on the one hand and the Commission on the other hand, we tended to move together quite a lot on such matters as discrimination, human rights, the environment and the third world.

If we did not get our way, we raised the matter again a year later and started again with the same argument. We usually got our way. The European Parliament always gets its way in the end. We cannot say that about Westminster, because if a proposal is defeated in Westminster that is it for that session of Parliament. In Europe, one just waits a year and starts all over again.

One of my causes was a code of conduct for substandard tankers. I did not succeed the first time: I succeeded by getting enough supporters with other dangerous waters beside me with my dangerous waters in Shetland, Orkney and the Minch.

The initiative of which I am proudest is the Erasmus scheme. When I chaired the culture committee, we got the Erasmus scheme through. In that, I drew from Scottish experience, because we used to send our students to other universities throughout Europe, such as Bologna, Valladolid, Paris and Leiden. I just thought, "Why not dip into the Scottish experience and open it up for all European students?"

Glasgow became the city of culture when I was chairman of the culture committee, but I assure members that that was nothing to do with me—it was genuinely a decision by the English minister. It was to be Britain's turn to have the city of culture. Bath, Oxford, Glasgow and Edinburgh were in the running. Glasgow got it, the English minister said, because its policy was all about the future and the other cities were talking only about the past.

We also got recognition of the deaf sign language of each EU member state through the Parliament. However, not all the countries have honoured that. Only three or four have done it, and Britain is not one of them.

In my opening speech in this Parliament, I urged that we follow the committee system of the European Parliament. I am happy to say that we have done that. Largely speaking, our committee system is the jewel of the Parliament. All parties are represented and everybody's contribution is valued if they have something interesting to contribute. That is the way that it is in Europe.

The criticisms of the secrecy of the Council of Ministers that we always made in the European Parliament remain more or less unchanged. We had all sorts of practical plans, such as the chairman of the appropriate committee being allowed in when the appropriate subject was on the agenda, but we never got in.

On Britain's clout for Scotland, I disagree. Fishing is the example that springs to mind. In that and many other things, Britain is the country that keeps turning down European money because it will not match it. If Scotland were, as I want it to be, a normal member of the EU, Britain would actually have more votes.

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Plenary, 09 May 2002

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