The European Parliament in Strasbourg is buzzing with excitement this week over a major challenge to a ruling by judges in the Court of Justice. In 2011 Europe's highest court ruled that pollen is an ingredient of honey, in direct contradiction to all understanding and practices in the sector. The judge's decision will cost EU honey producers an estimated £2.7 million in re-labelling jars of honey to indicate that they contain pollen, potentially undermining consumer confidence in honey.

MEPs in Strasbourg for their monthly plenary session will be asked on Thursday to vote for a proposal which will give tax breaks worth over €1 billion to rum from France's Overseas Departments in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean. Speaking out against the proposal, Scottish Conservative Euro MP Struan Stevenson said:

The following speech was delivered at the European Parliament's plenary session in Strasbourg on Monday 13 January 2014.

President,

I very much welcome the need to enhance wildlife law enforcement and to give serious organised wildlife crimes the same level of penalty as human trafficking, weapons trafficking and drug running. To do this, we must of course increase support for range states to help them fight organised poaching and trafficking and to promote actively campaigns which aim to black-list illegal products.

Iraq is plummeting rapidly towards civil war and genocide according to senior EU lawmaker Struan Stevenson, a Scottish Conservative Euro MP who chairs the European Parliament’s powerful Delegation for Relations with Iraq. Stevenson says that a current Iraqi Government-ordered onslaught against supposed Al-Qaeda terrorists in six Iraqi Provinces is no more than a cover for the “annihilation of Sunnis opposed to the increasingly sectarian Shia policies of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.”

The following article appeared in the Sunday Express Scotland on 22 December 2013:

This month, Struan appeals to readers to help Syrian refugees this winter, discusses a breakthrough in EU fisheries policy, praises the work of the Dogs Trust and ends on a note of festive cheer.

Please click here to read more.

The following article appeared on PM Blog on 17 December 2013:

Struan has been awarded a certificate from the IBE/ILAE Joint Task Force on Epilepsy to acknowledge his continued support to people with epilepsy and their caregivers.

Please click here to view the certificate.