Brussels, 28/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - This coming January, when the European Parliament elects its President for the second half of its mandate to replace Nicole Fontaine, the game will be open at last for the first round and possibly the second, with five candidates. This is what British Labour member and candidate for the Socialist Group (the second in number, after that of the EPP-ED) announced when talking on Tuesday to several journalists. David Martin, who was born in Edinburg in 1954 and who has been an MEP since 1984, hopes after the first round to be able to count on the votes of the European United Left/Nordic Greens Left (which is presenting its president, French Communist Francis Wurtz, as its candidate). He hopes also to have the votes of at least one part of the group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (whose candidate is French national Gérard Onesta, and which could be divided, giving a certain number of its votes to the president of the Liberal Group, Irish national Pat Cox, who is backed by the EPP-ED Group), and, who knows, perhaps also the vote of some of the British Conservatives. As David Martin reminds us, British parliamentary tradition does not prevent MPs from electing a Speaker from a party other than their own, as the required qualities to be Speaker are essentially that of being able to manage something as complicated as a parliament effectively.
As far as complication goes, the European Parliament is even more complicated than the parliaments of Member States, and David Martin, who is well experienced after several years as Vice-President of the European Parliament (alternating with his colleagues on the podium as session president), considers that this very concrete experience of his should play in his favour (French Socialist Pervenche Berès remarked to the same journalists that her work as a very good vice-president was one of Nicole Fontaine's assets against the Socialist candidate Mario Soares). David Martin draws several practical lessons from his experience. He states that, if he were President of the Parliament, he would try to make his work more lively, his debates more "robust" and more focused on themes of interest to the citizens, in addition, of course, to the legislative work incumbent upon him. This, he acknowledges, means that it will be necessary to make a serious effort concerning the agenda of the plenary sessions.
As to substance, David Martin noted that he was the first "avowably pro-European" Labour member at the European Parliament and that he had been the rapporteur for Parliament on the Treaty of Maastricht. He said he was particularly in favour of Britain joining the single currency and of a European constitution as, he believes, each citizen that wishes to know what is happening in the Union must be able to gain access to a "single document" that is clear and readable - something that the Treaty obviously is not.