British Parliament member addresses students
Taking time out from his busy schedule as a member of the British Parliament, Glyn Ford, who is also a senior visiting fellow with the University, delivered his first of several lectures to a freshman Discovery law class Monday. "I'm doing a week now, then I'm going to do another week in January and another week probably in March or April," Ford said. Ford's lectures will deal primarily with his areas of expertise, including East Asian relations, racism, fascism and technology. Life as a Parliament member can be quite hectic, because committee and Parliament meetings take place in three different countries. "It gives you a new perspective," Ford said. "The Parliament meets in France, the committees meet in France and my constituencies are in England." Ford said the message he is trying to get across is that "there is now a united states of Europe developing. Increasingly people should spend a little bit of time looking at Europe as a whole rather than individually." For his first talk with students, Ford wanted to give students an idea of what the European Union is composed of and how it functions. The actual flow of legislation begins with the Council of Ministers, a board composed of representatives from each of the 15 member states that "sets political agenda" for the rest of the government. From there, the 20 member European Commission translates the "wish list" of the Council into legislation to be passed on to Parliament, Ford explained. Parliament members are elected once every five years, by "direct mandate" of the people of the their region of the United Kingdom. The size of each constituency's population — in Ford's case 4 million people — determines the representation in Parliament. In Ford's jurisdiction, he is elected along with six other members from the South West of England sector. Fifteen countries are currently represented in the European Parliament. Those countries are represented by 626 members, speaking 11 different languages. The 626 members are broken down into 18 political parties including the two largest ones, the Socialist group and the Christian Democrats, Ford said. "We also have a number of people who aren't in any political group, my favorite being a Dutch-Calvinist who won his election on the platform of being against television and women," Ford joked. Once a law reaches Parliament, it is distributed to the committee responsible for its amending and presentation to the rest of Parliament. "The most serious political work is done in committees," Ford said. After the lecture, students were allowed to ask Ford questions about his experiences and the European Union. One student asked how the Union handles "enlargement," or the incorporation of more countries. "Currently the European Union is incredibly popular," Ford said. "There are currently 14 countries applying now, and we are in the negotiation process to see who gets in." Basically there are four criteria the Union looks for when adding nations to its existence. Applicants must be European, run by a democratic government, have an economy capable of "meshing" with the Union and respect human and civil rights. "Morocco was denied some years ago because they are not European," Ford said. Another student raised the question of campaign funding in elections for Parliament members. Those running for Parliament offices are allowed to spend a maximum of $40,000 to run, with money coming from party dues and various trade union contributions. British government hopefuls may also send out a "free mailing" to each voter in his or her constituency to ask for their support. The lecture proved to be quite intriguing to those students in attendance. "I thought it was very informative," said Andrew Sitter, freshman in commerce. "I was a little lost at first because it was all new information, but I thought it was good." Ford will be lecturing the rest of the week on such topics as racism and fascism before his duties take him to North Korea next week for negotiations with the North Korean government to build two new nuclear power stations in exchange for shutting down their nuclear weapons program, he said. |
||
© 2000 Illini Media Company, all rights reserved. |