Europe diary: Fear of flu

2 March 2006

In his diary this week, BBC Europe editor Mark Mardell discusses fear of bird flu, the EU's common energy policy, French patriotism, and the powerful smell of a mazout-fuelled boiler in the cellar.

The diary is published every Thursday.

RIDICULOUS CAUTION

I'm afraid wimps like my family are going to cause France a huge amount of economic damage. For some time now I have been plotting a spring break in France, the sort that involves poring over maps and guidebooks on the kitchen table on Sunday evenings. The planned destination - a farm deep in the French countryside.

Duck vaccination: Cattle farms should be safe, for now

But now I'm faced with mutiny on all fronts. "We are NOT going somewhere they've got bird flu," the rebel children declare. My protests that a cattle farm hundreds of miles away from the solitary case is not dangerous unless cows have learnt to fly, come to naught.

I can only wonder how many families are exercising similar, probably ridiculous caution at the expense of France's important tourist industry. And rumour and misunderstanding could spread the damage wider. One of the children, hearing a report on the radio, that bird flu had been found in turkeys near Lyon announced solemnly: "Now they've found it in lions in Turkey."

MR ENERGY

This is what they call power politics. You've had a common currency, a common defence force, and coming your way very soon is the commission's latest baby, a common energy policy.

HAVE YOUR SAY Your precious isle set in the silver sea may be an overseas destination for birds too, I'm afraid! Don't you think birds can fly to your country? F Roux, Bourges The message my six-year-old has picked up from school is that someone is going to stop him having roast chicken for Sunday lunch, and he's very cross with them Mark Howe, Cavaillon, France When house hunting in Brussels never mind the location look for the phrase "gaz chauffage" Tim Reynolds, Brussels Europe diary: Your views

Except it won't be called that for fear of alarming those, particularly in Britain, who don't like the idea of a common European anything.

I've had a sneaky look at the draft of the green paper and at the moment it stresses "choice of energy mix will remain a national decision". It also notes sternly that a country's decision to give up nuclear power or invest in wind power has big consequences for others.

But among the many ideas, one of the strongest is that Europe should speak with one voice. In practice that probably means that just as Peter Mandelson negotiates for all the EU in trade matters, so sensitive negotiations with Russia and the Middle East about oil and gas will be carried out by one man.

Step forward the Energy Commissioner, Latvian Andris Piebalgs, a former headmaster, civil servant and diplomat.

'ECONOMIC PATRIOTISM'

It will soon be possible to buy energy from anywhere in the EU

The British government thinks the selling point for a common energy policy should be that it will cut costs for all of us by encouraging competition. The Commission paper proudly notes that, from July of next year, every consumer will have the right to purchase gas and electricity from any supplier in the EU. This rings a bit hollow given that the French seem to be engaged in what many see as a bout of aggressive protectionism.

The state-owned Gaz de France is to merge with the Suez group, which effectively kills off an Italian bid. They already own Belgium's only electricity company. Maybe this example of what the French call "economic patriotism" is why the Commission paper notes that "continued vigilance is necessary to guarantee that this freedom to choose is real, not just a paper choice".

STINKY TANK

Talking of energy, a brute lurks in my cellar and I'm not going to miss it. Strange pipes and wires protrude from a rusty tank which looks like an experimental one-man submarine from the early part of the last century. It consumes, at an alarmingly expensive rate, mazout, a fuel oil apparently only known in the Francophone world.

All too frequently, a tanker turns up on our doorstep and plugs a pipe into the side of the house, and the stuff then glugs and gurgles and makes the place stink like a recently tarred road all day. I say I'm not going to miss it because we are being evicted after only six months. Not for any infringement of Belgian law, I hasten to add, but because the landlord wants to come home. The tank is the only thing about the house I won't mourn: I don't like house-hunting and the actual process of moving is grim.

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