Daniel Hannan (ECR). – Mr President, there comes a moment when you realise you’re one of the longest-serving Members in this Chamber. I’m old enough to remember the Tillack affair, when a German journalist was arrested, had his notebooks, his private papers rifled through, because he had been exposing fraud in the anti-fraud authorities. Nobody, by the way, rifled through the private papers of the alleged fraudsters. I’m old enough to remember the Marta Andreasen affair, when an accountant was brought in to clean up the Commission’s accounts, discovered that in some cases they weren’t even using double-entry bookkeeping, and the reaction in the Commission was to fire her. Why does this happen? Well of course, all organisations become interested in protecting their own position. That’s human nature; it’s not exclusive to Brussels institutions. But I think it is exacerbated by the intimidating fervour, the almost religious belief that people have in the European project, that makes them think that the ends justify the means and that critics can be legitimately silenced. Tackle that and you’d solve a great many problems.