Would EU believe it?

IN the Espace Leopold, the European Parliament building which looks like a large trinket box with curved roofs, people walk and talk all day.

They walk because the vast buildings, newly enlarged to cater for 27 member states, have endless lobbies, corridors, lifts, stairs, escalators and passages.

They talk because that is what the Parliament is about — debate, discussion, discourse and disagreement, before finally dovetailing 27 different opinions into a harmonious European voice.

There are 785 Euro-MPs, but 5,000 staff work in the glass palaces off Rue Wiertz, the grand front approach.

Add the hundreds of visitors, journalists, lobbyists, and even tourists who enter each day, and it’s a building in perpetual motion.

Unfortunately, I had missed the visit of the Society of Independent Brewers and the British Beer and Pub Association by 24 hours.

They met what is probably the most cohesive group in the building, the All Party Parliamentary Beer Group, and included JW Lees’s Greengate brewery, represented by its premium bitter. But I did meet the ICE men, who are the the Imaging Consumables coalition of Europe, high-powered companies such as Epson, Xerox and Brother, which produce cartridges, printer peripherals, and ribbons.

They talked for an hour on how their 41billion euro industry, which employs 100,000 in Europe, is losing 1.6bn euro a year to counterfeit and fake products.

I saw the Dalai Lama, who talked at a 45-minute press conference on how he wants autonomy for Tibet.

I also talked to a Tibetan woman who had been a political prisoner, Gyaltsen Dolkar, whose sentence was increased from four to 12 years because she recorded a protest song in prison which was smuggled out via India.

Another protest about freeing Gaza and the Palestinian lands from Israeli occupation was staged in the large central lobby on floor three.

Chris Davies, the Greenfield resident and North-West’s top Liberal Democrat Euro-MP, was debating on whether to strengthen links between Israel and the EU.

He said: “No, it’s like giving Israel a reward — what message are we sending to the Palestinians?”

The third-floor lobby is a bit like the lobby in the UK’s Houses of Parliament — it leads to the members’ dining room, all the lifts, the old and new buildings, the hemicycle (or round room), where Euro-MPs debate, and all the remaining offices.

The British Parliament sends its representatives to Brussels to find out what the chatter is among the different EU governments, and what the ‘direction of travel’ is, according to Helen Bower, press officer for the UK Permanent Representative to the EU.

Both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly also have representatives there.

The North-West adds it voice — via NWREP, the North-West Regional European Partnership. Its spokeswoman, Suzy Sumner, explained: “With seven million citizens, the region is bigger than some of the European member states. For example, we look at how universities can access funds for research, how small and medium-sized businesses can achieve competitiveness, plus the whole area around energy and climate change.”

The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities has an office there, with a staff of three, who also talk to Europeans.

Gary Titley, the veteran Labour Euro-MP for the North- West, steps down as Labour leader in January, and is retiring at the next elections in June, 2009. He can speak English, Spanish and French.

For the past 20 years, he has represented the region in Europe, with an office in Bury and house in Bolton.

And while he has seen history made over two decades — the fall of the Berlin Wall and the growth from 12 to 27 states — he talks most contentedly about taking a party of 150 Euro-MPs from the Socialist Group to Manchester and Salford a couple of weeks ago.

He said: “They went with some trepidation, and had an image of this area as a broken down industrial city. They were absolutely stunned by what they saw, the regeneration and the vibrancy.

“Transport experts wanted to hear about the plans for congestion charge, they met police, a Muslim heritage centre, saw the Lowry, Salford Quays and the Mediacity site, some talked to local schoolchildren about climate change.

“I took some people to Manchester City’s ground to look at work in the community. And we took walking tours around Manchester’s historical city centre. It was a big success, more than I had hoped for. There is no substitute for getting people to see the reality.”

*Tomorrow: Don’t mess with McCarthy and Meglena.