Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Conservative MEP Martin Callanan on the case of 'offensive' European Commission employee

Conservative MEP, Martin Callanan is the first of the three North East MEP's to respond my request to assist in the complaint against European Commission employee, John Jones.
He has provided the following:

Dear Neil,
Thank you for your patience with this matter.
I have written a letter on your behalf to Mr. Figel, the member of the European Commission responsible for translation services. I will keep you up to date on any response that I receive (but as I said, sometimes Commission responses can be slow).

As requested, please find Mr. Jones' superiors, in increasing order of rank:
Ms. Diane Sutherland, Chef d'unité de traduction of Unit EN 4, +(32) 2 2950936
Ms. Gillian Colledge, Chef de Département linguistique de langue anglaise, +(32) 2 2962069
Mr. George Vlachopoulos, Director of Translation for Brussels, +(32) 2 2958618
Mr. Karl-Johan Lonnroth, Directeur général, +(32) 2 2967825
Mr. Ján Figel, Commissioner of Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism, jan.figel@cec.eu.int
I hope you find this information of assistance.
Sincerely,
Martin


Although Lib Dem, Fiona Hall was first to acknowledge the e-mail, so far nothing else is forthcoming.
Labour MEP, Stephen Hughes has not yet had the courtesy to reply, but I am sure he is very busy with important things, but he did state in the press that he is assisting me. I have had to send him an e-mail (copied below) because he seems to be a bit mixed up about the difference between Europe and the European Union (can be seen in the Journal Article here).
Dear Stephen,
I have copied the letter sent by e-mail on Thursday to which I have not yet received a reply.
It does concern me somewhat that I read in the Journal this morning that you will be working with me, " To find out what has happened."
I would therefore have expected at least to have had an acknowledgement of my e-mail, but I am sure that this is just a simple oversight.
Stephen, I think I may perhaps agree with your views on Europe...I love Switzerland having been a number of times. I love the French Alps where I frequently go skiing and have holidayed in Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium. I love the different climates, cultures and peoples. Strasbourg is a beautiful city and one memory etched on my mind was watching the sun set on the red brick cathedral as an operetta played as I enjoyed a chilled beer. Wasn't quite the same as the Bigg Market on a Friday night. I also like Brussels, especially the architecture around La Grande Place where I have enjoyed many a memorable evening as I am sure that you have too.
I think therefore you must have confused Europe with the European Union.
On that score I do not like being governed by a corrupt, unaccountable, profligate bureaucracy which has no mandate from the British people whatsoever to exist, and compromises our absolute right to self-determination.I am aware that it is on this you hold the opposing view. I do hope that it wasn't a typographical error on behalf of the Journal. I am sure that you will clarify.
Look forward to hearing from you with regard to Mr. Jones' offensive behaviour and how you will be assisting taking the complaint forward to a satisfactory conclusion. As you will appreciate, everything must be done in an open and transparent manner when it involves such behaviour by publicly paid officials and we will be keeping everyone up to speed with all developments.
Yours sincerely,
Neil Herron


I am sure Mr. Jones will now be contemplating his actions and wondering whether we will be suing him, or the Commission, for libel (we are neither Luddites or anti-metric). All will be dependent on the nature of the Commission's investigation.

3 comments:

Gareth said...

Don't go down the suing route it'll make you look worse than him - can you even sue for libel something in an private email?

The English Democrats Party threatened to sue me for slander (I think they meant libel since it was something that I had written) and ended up looking pretty stupid.

Anonymous said...

I do not expect anything out of the Brussels junta, I do not even remember any report about the dimissed commission from Kinnock, and expect the whole criminal system to continue to hide behind prevarication. What Europe in the form of the EU wants is to dismember England, which country has saved them all from various dictators over the centuarys.

The present dictatorship is being enhanced by the addition of countries that do not understand democracy having been run by the Soviet Union from Moscow for over 40 years.

John barton Alnwick

Tom Paine said...

You can't sue the **** for defamation, as the offensive comments were sent only to you. That action could not lower you in the eyes of a right-thinking member of the community (which is the test).

You are the one who published the offensive remarks so, if you were libelled, you did it yourself.

Nonetheless, this behaviour by a "public servant" is outrageous and I wish you luck in obtaining a satisfactory outcome by political means.

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