Brussels Briefing Live – A full day conference on Europe with a British Flavour
The Parliament Magazine celebrated its third Brussels Briefing Live Conference in November 2012. The event took place in the unique atmosphere of the Commonwealth Club of London and the organizers can proudly claim to have hosted high quality speakers in the fields of journalism, private sector, and politics, all with the same interest: Europe and Britain.
The different breakout sessions addressed the agenda of EU and British policy makers from various perspectives. This variety allowed the audience to choose those policy breakouts they really wanted to attend while facilitating an overall insight of the current relationship between the Britain and the Union.
Perhaps one of the main conclusions of the briefing was the argument for the United Kingdom to continue in the European Union. It was discussed throughout the different breakouts the possibility of the United Kingdom leaving the Union or the so-called ‘Brexit’. However, voices such as Denis MacShane, Former Labour Minister for Europe; Jim Gibbons, Brussels based freelance journalist; or Lord Liddle, spokesperson for Europe in House of Lords, argued that such a possibility far from being easy, would be unsatisfactory.
The different speakers backed the status of Britain within the Union while encouraging the politicians and media to highlight the advantages of being European. In this way, Macshane, an emphatic proeuropean, claimed that ‘the UK has been in Europe for so long that people do not realise any more, politicians do not give points’. The politician does not seem to be wrong when someone listens Cameron’s regards concerning the Multiannual financial framework which he claims to be focused on French and Polish interest. British citizens are in this way suffering from a serious manipulation by both media and politics. Gibbons gives account of this belief claiming that attitude of the media is generally negative; he concluded claiming that any failure appears to have come from Brussels while goals are achieved by Westminster.
Despite the overall pro-European attitude of the briefing, there was also time for some doubts. Wayne David, Member of Parliament since 2001, did not share the same views towards Europe. The politician laid great stress on the ‘insensibility’ of the next Multiannual Financial Framework as well as the static status of the United Kingdom within the Union. David affirmed that the focus of the budget ‘has not changed since the 1986 Single European Act.
The remaining breakouts were more focused on concrete legislation and challenges that the Union and Britain will face in a near future: Free trade agreements, manufacturing, research, energy, women on board, and data protection rules. The issue of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) was especially interesting due to the current debate on Britain and its unclear future within the Union. Speakers such as the German MEP Silvana Koch-Mehrin manifested the great success of the FTA signed with Japan. At the same time, the politician urged Britain to stay within the Union for the difficulty that its industry could face if Britain makes its own way. Syed Kamall, also MEP and substitute member of the International TradeMark Association was clear in that regard: ‘companies are scared about the UK leaving the EU’.
All in all, the briefing did not suffer from those Eurosceptic views and it went by in an optimistic course with the ideas of unity, work-to-do and future.
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Written by Carlos Oliva-Quintana
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