Website reviews

BBC Website Guide

http://tinyurl.com/k55ph

As the European Parliament will be less familiar to many solicitors in Scotland than either Holyrood or Westminster, I thought I’d begin with this useful beginner’s guide. Although written in 2004, it adequately deals with more up-to-date matters (including Bulgarian and Romanian accession and changes to MEPs’ salaries) due to the slow pace of change in the EU. As you would expect from the BBC website (www.bbc.co.uk), it is detailed enough to be interesting and useful, without including so much information that the reader gets bored or lost.

That two of the six headings are “salaries and expenses” and “apathy” says a lot about public perception of the European Parliament. That perception may seem well founded to some when they read that “MEPs get 150,000 euros per year for office expenses and are not obliged to account for this expenditure”, and “They are also reimbursed for full-price air travel to and from their home country even if they fly by low-cost airline.”

European Parliament

www.europarl.europa.eu

The European Parliament’s official website is available in 22 different languages. I shall be reviewing the English version.

First, checking information on your MEPs is dead easy. From the home page, you are only three clicks from the list of Scottish MEPs. One more click will give you the page for one of those seven to examine in more detail. It is not always apparent from the EU party groupings which political parties the MEPs are part of (e.g. Scottish Labour Party members are listed as part of the socialist group), so that information is included. There is a superb integrated search function which takes the user to that MEP’s speeches, motions, questions, reports, opinions etc. Browsing through this, I was very impressed with how well it worked and it is an ideal way for keeping tabs on your MEPs. The declarations of financial interests are also available for download from the website in PDF, following pressure from comedian and campaigner Mark Thomas (www.markthomasinfo.com).

EP Live is the European Parliament’s audio and video service. As the name suggests, you can view live footage of the parliament in plenary session, and view previous sessions. There are also a number of “Eurinfo” videos in the library which take the form of short documentaries on various topics of interest in European law, from European football, to the Euromed free trade area and air pollution, to the inquiry into the Equitable Life Assurance Society. None of these are ever likely to win an Oscar, but they are certainly engaging enough, and I found them to be informative as well. There are also audio recordings to download as MP3s, including summaries of official reports by the rapporteurs themselves: perfect for the busy European law practitioner on the move. I listened to the report on EU-Russian relations, and learned a lot.

As you know, in terms of article 194 of the Treaty of Rome, any citizen of the European Union may exercise their right to petition the European Parliament. The website both explains the form for such petitions and allows them to be drafted and submitted electronically. However, this seems to be a rather more formal process than the equivalent on the 10 Downing Street website where, by coincidence, one of the more popular petitions is calling for a referendum on the new proposed EU constitution (http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/EU-treaty-NON).

Overall, the website is terrifically well organised. There is a huge amount of information and for it to be so easily accessible to even a first time user is testament to the skills of those who have created the site.

UK Office of the European Parliament

www.europarl.org.uk

Not only is there a UK Office of the European Parliament, that office also has a branch in Edinburgh (just next to our own parliament in Holyrood), with a particular remit to promote inter-parliamentary contact between the European Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. This website has much of the same information as the main European Parliament site, but with a specific UK focus. In fact there’s actually less information on this site for things like MEPs – although you can get links to your MEPs’ websites here (which are not available on the main site). In addition, there are a few features unique to the UK Office, e.g. leaflets for UK schoolchildren and information on procurement.