mr president the moment the lobbyist arrives in brussels he perceives immediately that this was a system designed by and for people like him
he is usually a man although his female equivalent can increasingly be found stalking our corridors in her sharp trouser suit
this is a system where decisions are taken i would say in smoke-filled rooms but these days in smoke-free rooms behind closed doors with the voters frozen out
you had a perfect example of that with the new restrictions and bans on herbal and alternative medicines which came in a couple of weeks ago
such a ban would never have passed a national parliament all of them being subjected as they were to real anger from their constituents
however the big pharmaceutical corporations understood that they could push through in this system what they could never get through the national legislatures precisely because this system is much more invulnerable to public opinion
so yes let us have this register i voted for it and my group supported it but the real solution is to disperse the power away from these unaccountable brussels and strasbourg institutions back to genuinely answerable national democratic parliaments
