Woman power
Long the Cinderella of European parliamentary committees, the Women's Rights committee is becoming the hottest place in town. MEPs used to fight to keep from being assigned to it, but suddenly there is a flood of inquiries about vacancies, and MEPs who are certain of their re-election next year are trying to find ways to reserve seats. The explanation lies in the Treaty of Amsterdam, whose portentous implications are only just starting to hit lobbyists and MEPs alike. The treaty's new Article 2 specifies that "equality of men and women" is now one of Europe's fundamental tasks. The new Article 3, which covers everything from the single market to the Common Agricultural Policy, says: "In all the activities referred to in this Article, the community shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between men and women."
Decoded by parliament's experts, this means that just about every piece of EU legislation will now have to go through the Women's Rights committee. It has become, overnight, the power centre. And the catch is, that with the new equality rule, male MEPs have just as much right to join it as women.
Austrian Airlines fiasco 2
Those wunderbar people from Austrian Airlines are at it again. Last month, we reported that they bumped half the Brussels press corps off the plane to Vienna for an Austrian government freebie to mark the country's first turn at the EU presidency. All would be fixed, promised the airline, in time for the Vienna finance ministers meeting in September. Whoops. Overbooked again. The hacks are chartering their own plane for the special EU summit at the end of October.
Belgian Freemasons
Belgians in the know say that there is a secret behind the "Augusta trial" of former Nato secretary-general Willy Claes and assorted ministers accused of corruption in the matter of various defence contracts. It is all to do with Freemasons, and working out which grandee belonged to which Lodge. Belgians have been paranoid about Freemasons since King Leopold II laid out the Royal Park in the heart of Brussels in a series of Masonic designs. The residence of Britain's permanent representative to the EU is located just by the point of one of the compasses. The current inhabitant, Stephen Wall, does have a suspiciously limp handshake.
New Labour witchhunt
An anonymous article condemning New Labour's "Stalinist" selection methods in the European Parliament magazine by a rejected MEP candidate has provoked a witchhunt. The first suspect was the fashionably balding Nigel Gardner, 30-something spokesman for Leon Brittan. He was innocent. Then the hunt began sniffing after Carole Tongue, an MEP who was put far down the London list after being unhelpful to Rupert Murdoch's ambition to control the entire European media. Again, not guilty. Then they went after the appositely-named Christine Oddy MEP, a lawyer who is plotting a legal challenge against her party's authoritarian manoeuvres. But it was soon realised the writing was too good. Millbank's frantic thought police have been taking old speeches from MEPs such as Eddie Newman and Barry Seal and running them through a computer programme designed to check stylistic similarities with the offending article. All in vain. The piece was laundered through the typewriter of ex-Daily Mail scribe Chris White, who knows a thing or two about thought police after working for the European Parliament's Conservative group.
Germans against Blairites
Funny how unpopular the Labour group of MEPs have become with their colleagues in the socialist group. German Social Democrat Rosemarie Wemheuer has been saying how the comrades will be glad to see the Blairites cut down to size at next year's Euro-elections. Before they go, the Germans have a parting gift: an inquiry into the legality of national parties taking money from MEPs' office expenses. Originally plotted as a way to get at the German Christian Democrats, it now seems New Labour's lordly ways with their MEPs' money could also be in the dock.
Bullish riots
Normally a placid sort of place, Li?ge is in serious danger of becoming exciting. First came the theft of the garden gnomes in the Place de la Cath?drale. Then a bull got away from the local abattoir and brought the thrills of Pamplona to the city for two hours, shrugging off the feeble revolver bullets of the police before making its escape to the main E-25 autoroute. Police trucks herded it back down a slip road to be dispatched with what was described as "a riot gun." What sort of riots are they preparing for?
