News

7th January 2004

John Bowis visits Twickenham Rotary

John Bowis - Conservative Member of the European Parliament for Twickenham and the London region - visited the Twickenham Branch of the Rotary Club on Monday 5th January 2004 and spoke about his work as a Member of the European Parliament. The event took place at the Fulwell Golf Club in Twickenham and was organised by the President of the Branch, Mr Paul Bartlett and Speaker Secretary, Mr Ian Stanton. John Bowis talked about his work in the Parliament as a member of the Environment and Health committees, showing how the European Union is at its best when sharing best practice, reducing cross-border pollution and tackling food safety risks.

Speaking from the Fulwell Golf Club, local MEP John Bowis said, "I was delighted to have been given this opportunity to meet local members of the Twickenham Rotary Club and answer their questions about my work as an MEP. As Members of the European Parliament, my colleagues and I deal with a variety of different and complex issues every week - standing up for the interests of the 8 million people in London that we represent in Brussels. In particular, with my colleagues I have played a key role in promoting and extending the benefits of the single market across Europe, providing new opportunities for British businesses to expand and sell their products abroad. With the expansion of the EU to new member states later this year, British companies are set to make greater inroads into the European market - creating more jobs in Britain."

John Bowis added, "However, sometimes the EU can be unnecessarily intrusive, as when it sought to harmonise local traditions in food and food supplements. On other occasions a perfectly sensible proposal from Europe went off the rails because a member state had failed to make the necessary preparations. An example of this was the fridge mountain that grew out of the good policy for the safe dismantling of the gases and coolants in fridges, which became a disaster area when it was found that the government had not provided for a single dismantling unit by the time the measure came into force."