Eurozone finance ministers, or the eurogroup as they are known, have broadly agreed the terms of the €30 billion bailout of Spanish banks as well as extending until 2014 the time by which Spain must reduce its deficit to a maximum of 3% of GDP. But this action has not pleased everyone. If many of the decisions had been taken before the crisis started, maybe we'd have avoided the situation now. After last week's decision to postpone a vote on a single Europe-wide patent, the Legal Affairs Committee tried to make progress with Commission and Council so that in future small businesses will only have to apply for one patent, not 27. Now we need to see a quick, good solution and I wish we weren't the European Parliament but the Vatican and could gather together Council, Commission and Parliament until citizens could see the white smoke coming out of our chimneys. The war on terror has claimed many victims but it was the Member States' integrity questioned today as the Civil Liberties Committee voted on a report alleging that EU governments allowed the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners by the CIA. We expect Member States to continue their work. Inquires are still open, others were closed but can be reopened. We are providing concrete evidence on the basis of analysis, EUROCONTROL data. Despite the EP voting in February to legislate to help dairy farmers to negotiate better prices for their milk from 2015 onwards, representatives of the European Milk Board descended on the EP in protest at what they feel is mismanagement of the dairy market and the potential for their job prospects to turn sour.

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