Deputies head down under

With an icy Arctic wind blowing through Brussels, this might be an appropriate moment to think of those hard-working, long-suffering Members of the European Parliament who did not go off to the sunny ski-slopes of France, Italy or Switzerland. Spare a thought in particular for the parliamentary delegation for relations with Australia and New Zealand.
It took an emergency meeting of the Parliament's Conference of Presidents to ensure that 14 MEPs got their winter sunshine.
Led by British Conservative MEP Neil Parish, accompanied by his wife, the delegation went off to New Zealand for an action-filled week, taking in some fascinating meetings in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland.
Parliament's great and good had to be called in to sanction the trip because of some confusion arising from changes to the rules last year, which limit the numbers of MEPs on delegation visits and their frequency. The French and English texts differ and there is uncertainty about how the rationing applies to a two-country delegation: should a trip to Australia count against a trip to New Zealand and vice versa?
Pending a definitive answer, the MEPs headed south, arguing that the New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark had invited them when she visited Brussels last November.