Consumers should know their options on recycling white goods and gadgets
Posted,1/23/2012 10:00:00 AM
Consumers should be aware of their different recycling options and the obligations retailers may have when electrical goods reach end of their useful life, a leading Conservative MEP said today.
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Tories block "damaging" pest-control ban
Posted,1/19/2012 12:00:00 PM
Pressure from Conservative MEPs has averted EU plans to ban Britain's most commonly-used rat poison from general use.
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GIRLING TELLS COMMISSION TO STOP WASTING FARMERS' TIME
Posted,11/24/2011 10:00:00 AM
Euro MP Julie Girling has today told the European Commission to stop wasting farmers' time and issue a statement of compliance for electronic identification of sheep (EID).
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MEP welcomes court ruling on holiday pay for long-term sick
Posted,11/22/2011 4:00:00 PM
The European Court of Justice today (Tues) ruled that workers on long-term sick leave have no automatic right to continue accruing holiday entitlement year after year. Instead, it said, individual countries should be allowed to set reasonable time limits on the entitlement of incapacitated employees to pay in lieu of leave once the individual returned to work or retired. The ruling on EU law was over a test case in which a German worker was claiming a settlement of thousands of euros because he had been unable to take annual leave when on sick leave for six years. Specifically, the court said: "In the case of a worker who is unfit for work for several consecutive reference periods, European Union law does not preclude national provisions or practices, such as collective agreements, which limit, by a carry-over period of 15 months on the expiry of which the right to paid annual leave lapses, the accumulation of entitlement to such leave." Welcoming the decision, Julie Girling, Conservative employment spokesman in the European Parliament, said: "It is good to see the ECJ accepting common sense on a matter which could have had a damaging effect on businesses large and small. "For a company to lose an employee on sick leave for for such a long time is challenge enough, but to then face an open-ended liability to pay that individual in lieu of annual leave would be adding insult to injury."
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"Naive" poverty report urges Europe-wide legal minimum income
Posted,11/15/2011 3:00:00 PM
The European Parliament today approved plans to investigate a legally-enforceable Europe-wide minimum income - and to classify poverty as a violation of human rights. In a move described as "well-meaning but naive", a motion proposed by Belgian MEP Frederic Daerden was voted through by the Strasbourg plenary sitting with the support of Socialist and Liberal MEPs. Conservative MEPs, who voted against, reacted angrily to the motion, which also aims to create a series of "poverty awareness seminars" across Europe. The Daerden motion declares in its preamble: "Poverty can be classed as a violation of human rights." It goes on to demand the creation by the EU of a regular, critical evaluation-mechanism to judge each member state's "progress in reducing poverty and social exclusion", and an annual report to be compiled on how Britain and other countries measure up. Where it is perceived too little is being done, the European Commission should hand national governments "country-specific" action plans, the motion stipulates. It "deplores" Commission proposals to reduce EU spending next year on food parcels for the poor, although the bill would still come to €113.5 million, and it calls for extra spending on state benefits across Europe for people with long-term illness or disability, for single parents and for families with many children. In addition, the motion calls for a convention on poverty and social exclusion, lasting at least a week, to take place every year in different venues across Europe. Julie Girling, Conservative spokesman on employment and social affairs, said: "You can't create prosperity by wishful thinking. "Nobody denies that poverty is a real and pressing problem. But poverty has nothing to do with human rights and everything to do with lack of opportunity and incentive to work productively. "These are the factors we must target. That is how wealth is created across society, and how the disadvantaged can best be lifted out of poverty. "Not by a Brussels diktat declaring some arbitrary minimum income, or by making benefits-dependency an attractive alternative to work. "This motion not only interferes with matters that should be tackled at national level - and are being - but puts forward proposals which would actually make nations poorer, not better-off. "To think otherwise is well-meaning but naive."
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