• eCall road safety alerts - report by Gary Titley MEP (Labour, North West);
• 2004 EU budget - MEPs to clear the accounts? (Debate Weds, Vote Thurs);
• Chernobyl 20 years on (Remembrance and debate - Wednesday)

 

eCall road safety

Gary Titley MEP (Labour, North West) will start proceedings on Thursday morning by presenting his report backing the proposed eCall system.

The idea behind eCall is that by the end of 2009, any new vehicle entering the market should be fitted with a device which, in the event of an accident, sends an automatic call to the nearest emergency call centre, wherever you are in the EU. It is hoped that eCall can save around 2,500 lives across the EU every year and €26bn in accident and congestion costs.

The debate will focus on what needs to happen before eCall is up and running. Are all 25 Member States ready for it, with the technology in place? How has the motor manufacturing industry responded, and the emergency services?

The debate is part of the ongoing strategy aimed at cutting road deaths by half by 2010. 40,000 people lose their lives each year on Europe's roads, and 1.6 million are injured, at a cost of €160bn. Quite apart from the human benefits, the potential savings of €26bn far outweigh the estimated cost of €4.5bn to install the system.

For a link to the report adopted in the Transport Committee, see http://www.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade3?PROG=REPORT&SORT_ORDER=D&REF_A=A6-2006-0072&L=EN

 

2004 budget - clearing the accounts

Wednesday afternoon's main debate is on the management of the EU budget in 2004 (it is the end of the so-called annual 'discharge' procedure whereby MEPs have to decide whether to sign off the accounts for that year).

For the 11th year in a row the European Court of Auditors has said that it is unable to establish that 'underlying transactions' (ie spending of the Community budget) are free of irregularities. The European Parliament's rapporteur (spokesman), Dutch Liberal MEP Jan Mulder, argues that the European Commission should not have to pay the price when the problem lies primarily in the Member States themselves. He has said: "Refusing the discharge to the Commission is a nuclear weapon and would mean that the Commission would have to resign…This Commission is cooperating well with the European Parliament to improve the EU's financial management, whereas the Council is resisting."

MEPs are likely, therefore to agree to sign off the 2004 accounts, but they want to keep up the pressure on Member State governments. MEPs on the Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee have called for 'national management declarations', to be signed by the relevant bodies responsible for overseeing use of EU funds in the Member States (ie the Treasury in the UK). They see this as an important step towards better management of EU monies where these are jointly managed by the European Commission and the Member States, as is the case for the vast majority of EU funds.

 

Chernobyl

The accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station will be remembered on Wednesday at 1.30pm (UK time) with the opening debate of this week's session. It is 20 years since Chernobyl and this will be the first time the European Parliament has debated the issue since the accession of new Member States bordering Russia in 2004. Jill Evans MEP (Plaid Cymru, Wales) has just visited the site of the plant as part of a delegation under the auspices of http://www.ch20.org/ .

 

Other issues

• Bulgaria and Romania: Eastern Region Conservative MEP Geoffrey Van Orden is one of the signatories to an oral question on the future EU membership of Bulgaria and Romania. The European Commission is due to report next month on the two countries' readiness to join the EU on 1 January 2007. Wednesday's debate will seek to find out whether Bulgaria and Romania have done enough in terms of reform to the judiciary and the fight against corruption and organised crime. A postponement for one year is a possibility, but this would have to be proposed by the European Commission.

• State Aid: The rules governing the granting of state aid are to be discussed by MEPs on Wednesday evening. The report adopted in the Economic & Monetary Affairs Committee argues that state aid earmarked for 'innovation' should only be granted for innovation which cannot be financed by normal commercial means. It remains to be seen whether the recent controversy over the closure of the Ryton Peugeot factory in the West Midlands is raised in the context of this week's debate.

• Language learning: MEPs will debate a resolution on the promotion of language learning in the EU (Wednesday). Eurobarometer research has shown that 38% of Europeans speak English, 14% speak German and/or French, with 6% speaking Spanish and 3% Italian. The European Commission has proposed a European Indicator of Language Competence for better comparison of language skills across Member States - MEPs are likely to give their support to that initiative in Thursday's vote.

• Trans-European Networks: The financing of the Trans-European transport Networks (TEN-T) will be the subject of a debate on Thursday morning. An oral question has been put to the European Commission in the light of the Council of Ministers' proposal to cut spending on TENs to a third of what the European Parliament had proposed. MEPs want to know what steps the Commission will take to ensure sufficient funding for the priority projects earmarked for 2007-2013.