Welcome to my Strasbourg Roundup - a very brief update to let you know what happens at the Plenary Meetings of the European Parliament. The first Strasbourg session of the new Parliament was very busy as the 736 MEPs gathered for the first time and debated and / or voted on the following issues:

Vote on the Commission President
The Parliament as a whole voted to elect the President of the Commission. This is an important position, as the President helps choose the Commissioners, and sets the political agenda of the Commission. As the Commission is the only institution which can formally propose legislation, the priorities of the President are very important. This month José Manuel Barroso was re-elected for a second term, and he will serve as President for another five years. We in the European Parliamentary Labour Party do not fully support Mr Barroso - we are concerned that he has not shown enough commitment to a social agenda for Europe, and he has not proposed enough concrete, substantial plans for social rights over the next five years. For this reason we chose to abstain from the vote. Given the economic and financial crisis which we are facing, it is vital that workers are afforded real social protections. Now that Mr Barroso has been re-elected, he will form the new Commission, made up of 27 Commissioners in total. My Labour colleagues and I will be watching closely to ensure Mr Barroso appoints Commissioners who have committed to advancing Europe's social agenda, and based on that assessment we will vote again to endorse or reject the Commission as a whole later this year.

Milk Quotas
I voted in favour of extending the intervention period for butter and skimmed milk powder. This difficult issue has received much debate in the media as well as here in the European Parliament. The global recession has meant dairy prices have dropped considerably, and as a result many dairy farmers are in danger of going out of business unless a short term solution can be found. By taking excess butter and skimmed milk powder off the market and into storage, prices of dairy products for farmers can be maintained, and we can hopefully prevent many farmers being forced to leave their farms. In the long term, dairy farming is one of many sectors of the agricultural industry which will be facing reforms in the coming years, but in the short term it is important to act in a time of economic crisis.

Free Trade Agreement with Korea
The Commissioner for Trade, Baroness Ashton, spoke to the Parliament about the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) being negotiated with South Korea. After several years of negotiations the Agreement is in its final stages, and I welcome its timely completion. Korea is the UK's 12th largest trading partner outside Europe, and whisky exports alone totalled £137million in 2007. The Agreement would eliminate many of the barriers which currently hinder trade with South Korea. Most significantly for Scotland, tariffs on whisky would be eliminated in three years, offering a significant advantage to Scottish whisky suppliers. I thanked Commissioner Ashton for her work on the Agreement, and once again voiced my support for its completion.

Other issues which came up in this month's Strasbourg session included:

During Question Time with the Commission, I was able to ask Commissioner Ashton what action the Commission has taken in light of the human rights situation in Colombia. Reports from the country indicate it is at present an incredibly dangerous time for trade unionists and human rights activists, with reports that 109 people have been killed since 2007. I am deeply concerned about the human rights situation, and do not believe Colombia should benefit from preferential trade agreements unless human rights are respected. The Commission has said it will work hard to ensure strong human rights clauses are written into trade agreements and upheld, but I will continue to argue that current preferential trade agreements should be suspended until the human rights abuses are addressed in Colombia.

I also attended a meeting of the Intergroup on Welfare and Conservation of Animals, which presented the findings of an investigation by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research into a welfare quality project. Having continuously campaigned for strong animal welfare provisions I was, and remain, interested to hear of recommendations for European standards for the welfare assessment of farms. I look forward to further investigations into how we can improve the welfare of animals on farms throughout Europe.