EU’ve got mail!: Liberal Letters from the European Parliament

The latest book by Graham Watson MEP, reviewed by Jeremy Hargreaves

Three years ago, Graham Watson had a very good idea. To do his bit to spread understanding of the EU more widely, he decided that as he sat down on the hour-long flight from Brussels to Bristol most Thursday evenings, he would write a short email bulletin to Liberal Democrats across the South West, telling them what he had been up to that week. It was an ingeniously simple idea, and this book collects the emails he sent, from February 2002 to June 2004.

The resulting book certainly tells you a lot about the way the modern EU really works, and is surprisingly fun. Surprising not because its author is every anything other than lively and enthusiastic, but because let’s face it, which of us tends to really choose to sit down and read books about the way of the EU works?

But the style of lots of short bite-sized chunks, which are certainly very varied, works. This volume doesn’t sit you down for several pages to explain how some directive works, and what all its implications are. Instead we follow just a few high profile pieces of legislation, in ‘real time’, as they progress through their stages. It all gives a good idea of the dynamics of how the EU and the European Parliament actually function.

The most striking thing about the author’s tales is the staggering variety of the engagements in his diary. It is a rare week in which he does not start and end the week campaigning with PPCs or in a byelection somewhere in the several counties in the South west he represents, spends several days in between in Brussels pursuing various pieces of legislation and perhaps meeting a Foreign Minister or two, as well as visiting one or two other EU countries campaigning or speaking at meetings. It must be an extraordinary pace of life, but it does give the reader of this book a good idea of the very wide range of things that our Euro-MPs are able to get involved in.

We get to know something of a range of legislative measures, from agreements over the transfer of passenger data to the USA, to the arms embargo against China, to the reform of the European Parliament’s own expenses regime. And we certainly understand more about the very real way in which Members of the European Parliament can have an impact on new laws – far more than our Westminster MPs can. And even though as leader of the whole ELDR group, the third largest in the Parliament, Graham Watson is more senior than many of his colleagues, I doubt there are many of our MPs who have had everyone from the Chief Secretary to Her Majesty’s Treasury to senior Asian and African dignitaries in their office, seeking the support which they need to get their measure passed.

Some of his comments are peculiarly prescient – such as the comment on April 16 this year, as the Parliament was approving the new commissioners from the 10 accession countries who would join the existing 20 commissioners in the last few months of their mandate, that the European Parliament “ has not yet declined to approve a nomination to the European Commission, But the day will come”.

The way this book was written makes it a good one to dip in and out of. It is highly engaging, and a very good book for anyone who wants a first-hand explanation of how the European Parliament really works, in human language.

Jeremy Hargreaves is Chair of the Liberal Democrat European Group.

Copies of EU’ve got mail!: Liberal Letters from the European Parliament can be ordered from: Bagehot’s Foundry, Beards Yard, Langport Somerset, TA10 9PS