Red Alert campaign blog

Bill Newton Dunn (E Mids): I am not involved

Bill Newton Dunn, Liberal Democrat MEP for the E Midlands, told MBM:

"Possibly you are not totally familiar with the way the EU makes its decisions. Forgive me therefore if the following is a duplication.

"EU Decisions are shared between three entirely-separate independent bodies - the Commission (which is the Executive body and does the day-to-day work, a bit like Bush and his cabinet in Washington DC) : the second is the Council of Ministers (which is the upper house of the EU's bicameral legislature, and represents the EU's 25 member state's governments, a bit like the Senate in Washington DC which has representatives from their 50 states) : the third is the European Parliament (which is directly elected to represent the people, like the House of Representatives in Washington DC, is the lower house of the EU's legislature, and appoints and dismisses the 27 Commissioners.)

"The decision on whether or not to continue the UK's derogation in this area is not going to be made in the parliament - so, finally getting to the answer to your question, I am not the right person for you to be asking because I am not involved in the making of the decision. That will be done by a request from the British government to the Commission and our government will need support from a weighted majority of the other EU national governments."

Obviously MBM is fully aware of this process, but believes that MEPs, as our representatives in Europe, are best placed to lobby Commissioners on our behalf.

Mr Newton Dunn suggested meeting with the Commissioner involved with this decision, Laszlo Kovacs. This is something in which MBM is already engaged.

If Mr Newton Dunn is your MEP, you can contact him at bill.newtondunn@europarl.europa.eu

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