Monthly Archives: March 2010

March 23, 2010 · 11:05 am

New European Heritage Label will be as successful as Culture Capital Scheme

Yesterday the Culture and Education Committee decided to give the go ahead for a report on a European Heritage Label – a version of the European Capital of Culture for historic sites.

The proposal is for a pan-European scheme to reward sites of special European significance with a European Heritage Label.  The sites, chosen by EU member states, would symbolise European history and ideals.  Participation would be voluntary, though obviously we would hope that all the countries of the EU would take part.

Each country would be able to nominate two sites a year for the Label and a panel would then chose one from each member state for the award itself.  This means, assuming all EU countries were in the scheme, there would be 27 European Heritage Label sites per year.  

The idea is for those running and involved in the sites to get together, and for the European Heritage Label to base itself on the very successful European Capital of Culture scheme, now in its 25th year.

Seventeen EU countries already have a version of what is now being proposed at EU level, so this proposal will build on what already exists rather than re-inventing the wheel.  Most of the costs would be borne by individual EU countries with the EU centrally only carrying out basic administrative tasks.  EU staff would be redeployed to carry out this work; there are no plans for increasing expenditure.

As a Londoner, I see the Heritage Label as a kind of European Blue Plaque with the added value of European networking for those people and organisations who take part.  It’s an excellent idea, the kind of thing which gives a boost to sites of special interest and adds a bit of life and colour to the areas concerned.  It should also encourage tourism and therefore have economic as well as cultural value.

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March 22, 2010 · 8:00 am

Learning about Life Long Learning

I recently hosted an event in the European Parliament with the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) where two reports were presented about life long learning.  One of the EAEA’s leading lights is former MEP Sue Waddington, and it was good to see her again and to have the opportunity to participate in an excellent meeting.

Tom Schuller and David Watson offered an authoritative and coherent strategic framework for lifelong learning in the UK,  articulating a broad rationale for public and private investment in lifelong learning, a re-appraisal of the social and cultural value attached to it by policy-makers and the public and developing new perspectives on policy and practice.

“Learning Through Life – Inquiry in to the Future of Life Long Learning” also states that though the UK is quite good when compared with other European Countries, with high participation rates in education and training, and quite high levels of flexibility in formal education, there are a number of problems.  Probably the most important of these problems is the demographic challenge: the balance of opportunity and support for learning through different stages of life is wrong.  With an increasingly aging population, the amount of money spent on educating those aged between 18-25 is so much more than all other adult age groups combined.  As well as this there are some interesting statistics which show that, after the age of 25, the percentage of women involved in Life Long Learning starts to increase.

The other report presented by Jyri Manninen and co-authored with Saara Luukannel was entitled, ‘The Effects of Adult Learning: The meaning and significance of nonformal learning in the lives of adults’ mainly covered nonformal education in Finland.

The main feature of nonformal education in Finland is ‘a diversity of curricula’, covering a huge range of topics, not just more traditional subjects, but arts and crafts and local history studies.  50% of Finnish Adult population participated in adult education in 2006 so it was a perfect place to do a study the effects of nonformal education from the learner’s point of view.  The study discovered that the most common effects of adult and nonformal education were an enthusiasm to continue learning (93%).  Opportunities for career and livelihood development benefited the least, but even in this regard 30-40% reported at least some positive development.  The study also found that there are broader improvements in society such as an increase in social capital and social cohesion; general skills and attitudes regarding active citizenship; sense of community; and the birth of social networks.

I’m sure both these reports will make a significant contribution to the European Parliament’s continuing work on life long learning.   My colleague in the Culture and Education Committee, Maria Badia i Cutchet, included a section in a recent report about adult learning, and the EU 2020 strategy has made life long learning one of its top priorities.

An umbrella group with more than 100 member organisations from 34 countries working in the field of adult learning, the EAEA represents more than 50 million women and men learners from across Europe and promotes adult learning and the widening of access and participation in formal and non-formal adult education for all, particularly for groups the most in need and the under-represented.  EAEA believes that the purposes of learning may be for personal fulfilment or skills for employment; for social change and active citizenship; for sustainable development and gender mainstreaming; for cultural and intercultural awareness and knowledge.  They have a very positive ethos towards adult education and this event was a great demonstration of the kind of forward thinking and innovation they are seeking to support.

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March 21, 2010 · 12:08 pm

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer

I will come clean straight away and confess that my progress through the Man Booker shortlist has been completely disrupted by Stieg Larsson.  Tempted by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I became totally and utterly hooked and have now read all three – The Girl who played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornet’s Nest.  It’s been a long time, if ever, that I’ve read anything so compelling, such a ripping good yarn with a dose of Swedish social conscience.  Do go for it, but make sure you are either on holiday or otherwise have nothing too pressing to do as I assure you, you won’t be able to put any of the books down.

 Back to The Glass Room, the best of the shortlist after the winner. Wolf Hall.  It’s also set in the past, though this time only the middle of the last century, starting before the Second World War. 

At the end of the 1920s a wealthy, partly Jewish, Austrian family build a very modern house of glass where they hold musical soirees and generally live a privileged life.  The rise of Hitler and the War put paid to all of that and the family leaves the house for the United States.  Eventually the heroine comes back to Austria and is reunited with her oldest friend.

The book isn’t, in fact, as trite as this outline sounds.  Taking the house as its central feature, The Glass Room explores nationality, religion, war and the relationships between men and women with some degree of originality.  Written in an easy style, it’s a good read and will repay the time invested in it.

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March 19, 2010 · 5:23 pm

UKIP’s proposal to cut back public spending – kill prisoners

I I do not  like my fellow London MEP Gerard Batten very much. Let me explain why. He claims as a UKIP member to be a patriot but does not pay his taxes.  Perhaps he would feel more at home in Belize with Michael Ashcroft? In 2008 I exposed that he was covering up his financial records . (He does seem to have a bit in common with Lord Ashcroft – perhaps he is a non-dom too?) He voted against extending education in Europe with a minority of hard right oppositionists (the vote was 623 for, 56 against). He does such a poor job of representing London that his UKIP colleague Godfrey Bloom MEP from Yorkshire has to come in and help him. On immigration his view is “Enough is enough.“

Gerard is not keen on people of different races mixing writing:

“THE MYTH of multiculturalism depends on the belief that completely different cultures, and indeed contradictory world views, can peacefully co-exist within the same geographic and political space.”

I wonder what new UKIP MEP Marta Andresan who is an Argentine by birth makes of this weltanschauung?

Gerard has a high regard for Dutch extreme right politician Geert Wilders who you can see him pictured with.

Now Gerard has turned his mind to economic policy. Last week speaking in Strasbourg during a debate on the death penalty in South Korea he said:

“ This (the death penalty) would also save millions of pounds every year currently wasted on keeping such criminals in prison for life that could be better spent on the old and the sick. So well done South Korea: go on executing your worst criminals.”

Forget justice the key issue is saving money. Look on the bright side, if there are any miscarriages of justice in Gerard’s world at least thousands of pounds has been saved with this eugenic economic policy. Of course the wonderful thing is that any country which is a member of the European Union must renounce the death penalty. To me it demonstrates what a civilized institution it is. How frustrating for Gerard.

Even by Gerard’s previous policies his new Vote UKIP – Kill Prisoners – Save Millions campaign must be a new odious low.

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March 18, 2010 · 1:03 pm

International Women’s Day Event on Violence against Women

This year International Women’s Day was celebrated a week later than usual in the European Parliament, with most of the major events taking place on 16th March rather than the 8th. On Tuesday morning, members of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee organised a hearing on the theme of violence against women, with national parliaments, press and NGOs invited to discuss the issue. Violence against women is a subject that I have blogged about on several occasions, and it is an issue that the European Parliament has tried to address at every available opportunity, particularly since the take over of the Spanish Presidency.

The event was opened by the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, giving a supportive speech for women subject to violence. It was followed by an address by Bibiana Aído Almagro, who is the Spanish Minister for Gender Equality. She underlined that no society can hope to achieve full gender equality if violence against women cannot be eradicated, and stressed the need for EU Member States to develop national strategies to deal with violence, including trafficking. A Bulgarian journalist who attended the event described a horrifying practice in his country whereby acid is thrown on women, leading to blindness and disfigurement. He highlighted that in Bulgaria violence against women is far more accepted than other parts of Western Europe, with large numbers of women affected. It is true that in many parts of the world certain forms of violence are treated not as crimes but as private family business in which the state should not interfere. The distinction between the public and the private is one of the main reasons why violence against women is not always investigated and prosecuted.

One proposal put forward during the discussion was that of setting up a Europe-wide hotline for victims of abuse. In Spain, a hotline has already been established, providing advice and support for women who have been subject to violence. To implement a similar system at the EU level would offer a valuable support network to women who need it, and could, I believe, have a hugely positive impact. The problem is deciding what form this hotline would take. We already have in operation a Europe-wide hotline for missing children; yet many Member States simply haven’t made full use of this service. It is not enough to put in place a hotline with a number that victims can ring. It is also necessary to set up an infrastructure, with a link to police, NGOs and other bodies. This requires money, and a strong willingness on the part of national governments to implement it.

We know that violence against women, in whatever form, violates human rights and presents a significant obstacle to the achievement of equality between men and women. It imposes huge costs on society, and creates a major public health problem. For this reason, it is indispensable that the EU continues to address this issue and encourages Member States to do the same. As I explained in previous blog posts, in 2000 the EU-funded Daphne programme was set up to prevent and fight all forms of violence against women, adolescents and children, taking place in either the public or the private sphere. At present, an ad hoc committee is also drafting a European convention which will establish common standards aimed at preventing and fighting the problem of violence against women.

There are just five years to go before we reach the deadline for implementing the Millennium Development Goals and there is still an awful lot more needing to be done. However I will strive to ensure, along with my fellow members of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, that violence against women remains at the top of the EU agenda. I hope that when we reach International Women’s Day in 2011, we will have seen more substantial improvements in the fight against this grave crime and a greater level of awareness about its damaging effects.

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March 17, 2010 · 9:50 pm

David Cameron’s Friends Commemorate the SS

Sometimes when I write about how extreme the Conservative Party’s friends in Europe are I am doubted. Today’s Independent has an article

Thousands pay tribute to Latvia’s fallen troops

which says

“This year, however, the occasion has put the spotlight on David Cameron’s Conservative Party, which is politically in bed with the event’s backers.”

the article concludes:

“Many Latvian SS veterans insist that they were not party to atrocities. However, Jewish groups point out that Latvian police were recruited by the Germans and took part in the Holocaust. They were responsible for the mass execution of Jews after the Nazi invasion in 1941. These men later willingly joined the Waffen SS. Historians point out that they were involved in a war against so-called “partisans” which almost certainly involved mass shootings.

With all my sympathy for the victims of Communism, the crimes of Communism are simply not the same as the Holocaust. Part of this is fuelled by a desire to deflect attention away from the extensive collaboration with the Nazis during the Second World War,” Mr Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre  said. “They thought they were fighting for Latvia but the real beneficiary of these men’s service and bravery was Nazi Germany.”

Shouldn’t a political party like this be working with the BNP not the British Conservative Party?

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· 12:20 pm

Osteoporosis – the silent disease

Together with Anja Weisgerber MEP, Co-Chair with me of the Osteoporosis Interest Group in the European Parliament,  I was very pleased yesterday to host a special osteoporosis event in the European Parliament. Organised by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF), the event took the form of a lunch, providing an opportunity for the IOF to introduce their work to MEPs and other interested people, and in the process build stronger relations with the European Parliament. The IOF is a small NGO based in Nyon, Switzerland, which aims to educate the public about osteoporosis, empower people to take responsibility for their bone health, persuade governments to make this disease a health care priority, and to assist health care professionals in providing the best possible care to patients and sufferers.

The IOF representatives attending were Professor John Kanis, Professor Juliet Compston, and Victoria Monti. President of the IOF, Professor John Kanis, gave an informative presentation focusing on the urgent need to involve all member states in a coordinated effort to address the gaps in measures to tackle osteoporosis. Osteoporosis is an extremely costly disease, and unless these gaps are acknowledged and addressed these economic costs will only continue to rise as more people are affected.

Professor Juliet Compston, who is the Chair of the EU Osteoporosis Consultation Panel, also gave a short presentation, indentifying eight key targets for the improvement of osteoporosis management in EU member states. These include making osteoporosis a healthcare priority, improving the delivery, integration and quality of osteoporosis education and implementing stronger research schemes. She acknowledged the great progress that has been achieved in osteoporosis prevention and treatment policy. However, she also noted that unfortunately many aspects of management of the disease remain unsatisfactory and more is still needs to be done. At present 21 countries do not recognise osteoporosis as a health priority, and full access to bone density scans and treatments are not currently available to high risk individuals in many states.

It is vitally important to increase people’s awareness and understanding of osteoporosis and to motivate people to take action to prevent, diagnose and treat the disease. Our lunch was a great success, with MEPs from different groups participating in the debate and in some cases even sharing some of their own experiences. I very much hope they will take what they heard back to their member states’ governments.

Later this year, on October 12th, Ms Weisgerber and I will be co-chairing another event in the Parliament, in collaboration with the IOF, to celebrate World Osteoporosis Day. This will be a much bigger full-day event, building on the success of yesterday, with presentations by experts and general discussions. The idea will be to further MEPs’ knowledge of this serious disease and try and put forward plans for action.

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March 16, 2010 · 11:07 am

Cameron and Osborne caught out over “Dwarfgate”

David Cameron and George Osborne’s suitability for government must again be seriously in question after their their latest Sarkozy gaffe.

In case you missed the story, Cameron is said to have made a comment about “hidden dwarfs” when discussing a photograph taken with French President Sarkozy, who is 7 inches shorter than the Tory leader.  This follows comments in September by Osborne, who, while standing on stage at a conference hosted by Spectator magazine, removed a stool from the stage, joking that it was the “Sarkozy box”.  Sarkozy has apparently made a formal complaint to the UK government over Osborne’s childish “joke”.

Quite apart from the immaturity and inappropriateness of making fun of people for their size, stature, or appearance – although this is exactly the kind of juvenile humour deemed acceptable among those with the Tory leaderships’ Oxford Bullingdon club background – such mockery of the head of state of a leading nation on the world stage belies a worrying lack of statesmanship.

Cameron has already caused the French President regret by pulling his MEPs out of the EPP Group in the European Parliament.  Now he and his side-kick move on to personal jibes.  Diplomacy under a Cameron government?  More like putting both feet into a very large hole and continuing to dig, and most definitely not good for British interests.

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· 9:00 am

The Tories’ Real Record on Women’s Rights

I have been reading with some amazement recent statements on women from senior Tories, in particular David Cameron and Theresa May.  In David Cameron’s speech to the Conservative Party spring conference last month, he emphasised how “family-friendly” his party’s manifesto would be with the “right to flexibility to everyone with children”.  Last week Theresa May used the occasion of International Women’s Day to make a “pledge of support for women” in the Guardian online pages. 

All fine sentiments, but female voters beware!  Beyond Cameron and May’s words, there is little sense that there is any support for such policies in the core of the Tory party, or little evidence that the party leadership have the will to implement them.  Indeed, as I have blogged before, the voting record of Tory MEPs on women’s rights issues since David Cameron became leader is appalling, and exposes the fact that really nothing has changed in the Nasty Party.

For example, in 2006 Tory MEPs voted against a Report on combating violence against women, which included provisions on making rape within marriage a criminal offence, eliminating female genital mutilation, and encouraging cross border cooperation on so-called “honour” crimes, all matters mentioned by Theresa May in her Guardian article as commitments of a future Tory government. 

Yet it seems her MEPs do not share these concerns.  As recently as 2009, the Tory MEPs abstained in a vote urging member states to improve their national policies on combating violence against women, where the importance of recognising rape within marriage as a criminal offence was again underlined. 

On childcare, the EU adopted Employment guidelines as part of the EU’s Growth and Jobs strategy in 2008.  These guidelines included targets for flexible working, and access to childcare, surely a key element of Cameron’s pledge of the “right to flexibility to everyone with children”.  Again, this failed to get the Conservative MEPs’ backing.

In February of this year, the Tories voted against a report which included provisions on the need to tackle the gender pay gap – another issue Theresa May purports to be in favour of – and to link maternity and paternity leave.  The Tories in the European Parliament explicitly disagreed with the call to establish paternity leave across Europe, and against linking paternity and maternity leave to ensure fathers are able to take time off as well.  The report in question also contained a provision on one of David Cameron’s priority policies, combating persistent sexist stereotyping and degrading images.  Again the Tory MEPs voted against.

David Cameron said last month in his speech that as a parent he “dreads switching on the television and being bombarded with commercial messages”.  However, in 2008, the European Parliament discussed the issue of advertising and stereotypes in the media.  Member States were urged to ensure that marketing and advertising did not uphold discriminatory stereotypes, and consider the impact of advertising on children and teenagers’ body image and self-esteem, and yet 15 Tory MEPs still managed to vote against this measure.

I continue to be amazed at the disingenuousness of Cameron’s approach.  If he and his party were serious about family friendly policies and women’s rights, they would not let their MEPs vote so brazenly against these reports which recognise the importance of these issues. 

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that, with a general election drawing near, the Tories suddenly remember that they need to try and appeal to women, who do make up over 50% of the electorate, but I would urge female voters not to fall for these well-scripted sentiments, when time and time again it can be shown that they are not supported by the Tories in any way that matters.

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March 15, 2010 · 9:00 am

Flawed Roadmap for Gender Equality criticised by European Women’s Lobby

The success of the Roadmap for gender equality has been marred by a lack of comparable data across the EU, a lack of targeted financial resources, and difficulties of coordination at national and EU level with gender mainstreaming.

This is the hard-hitting conclusion of  a report entitled, ‘From Beijing to Brussels: An Unfinished Journey’, which evaluates the progress made at European level towards the full implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA). It is the third Alternative Report that the European Women’s Lobbly, the Brussels umbrella group for women’s organisations, has produced, following their earlier Beijing +5 and Beijing +10 reports.

Adopted at the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995, the Bejing Platform for Action is an agenda aimed at empowering women by speeding up national governments’ implementation of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women. Twelve areas were identified in Beijing in 1995 as being most critical, including women’s economic empowerment, women’s human rights, the girl child, and violence against women.

Sadly, some areas, such as women and the media, education and the training of young women, and women and health, have been all-but neglected at EU level, even though the achievement of full equality between women and men is one of the main goals of the EU and all 27 Member States are signatories to Beijing Platform for Action. However, despite the problems with the equlaity Roadmap,  the EU has taken a number of important steps in recent years to comply with the BPfA. One of the most significant of these, in addition to the Roadmap, was the founding of a European Institute for Gender Equality which I worked on as a member of the Women’s Committee. I was therefore pleased to see that the Institute began operating at the end of last year.

The EWL report particularly draws on the need to apply more rigorously, at both EU and national level, a policy of gender mainstreaming to all the areas of concern that are not uniquely ‘women’s’ issues. Note that in the field of education, where the perpetuation of gender stereotypes is leading to a lack of uptake in certain subjects by both girls and boys, this is having a hugely limiting impact upon their subsequent life choices. It is crucial we acknowledge and address demographic trends such as these in order to promote lifelong learning and ensure that potential future skills shortages are avoided.

This EWL report is extremely comprehensive, offering a critical assessment of the EU’s record in implementing the commitments that it made in Beijing 15 years ago. It highlights that positives changes have been made, particularly in the areas of violence against women and women in decision-making, but notes that there is still a long way to go. Only when all 12 areas of concerned identified in Beijing have been fully addressed can the EU be satisfied that it has had a significant impact on the progression towards a truly equal society.

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