'european parliament' - tagged features

More and more European leaders have sharpened their tone over Tibet this week. Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders, said he would not rule out a boycott if the situation in Tibet worsens. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy did the same. Meanwhile the head of the European Parliament invited the Dalai Lama to address EU lawmakers on the situation in Tibet. And, he also raised the option of boycotting the opening ceremony. But what would a boycott achieve? Marco Cappato is an Italian liberal democrat member of the European Parliament. 

There’s been a scandal brewing in Brussels over the past week. Chris Davies, a member of the European Parliament, read an internal report that suggests some of his parliamentary colleagues are being less than honest with the money they claim to run their offices. He says he was so appalled by what he found out he’s gone public with it. Now allegations of fraud are flying and a fiercely bad-tempered row has erupted between those who want the report published and those who think it’s less than explosive. MEPs are given around two hundred thousand euros a year to keep an office and pay for assistants. And most of them say they have nothing to hide. So why don’t they want the report to be made public? 

Each December, on the day after the International Day of Human Rights – the European Parliament awards its Sakharov prize for freedom of thought. It’s the Parliament’s top human rights award, named after Andrei Sakharov, a Russian physicist who spoke out against nuclear proliferation and worked against human rights abuses in the former Soviet Union. Radio France International’s Sarah Elzas was in Strasbourg this week to meet the 2007 winner.