On 9 March 2011, the same majority voted in a secret ballot to cut one week in Strasbourg from the 2012 and 2013 parliamentary calendars. The Study Group was founded when Edward sent an email to MEPs, staff and assistants in October 2010. It offered a neutral and objective look at the two-seat Brussels/Strasbourg arrangement of the European Parliament and is a follow up of the Oneseat campaign of the European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstrom during her time as an MEP. This led to 1.2 million Europeans signing-up to the OneSeat pledge. In February 2011, the Study Group published a comprehensive report - A tale of two cities - which found an overwhelming majority in favour of a single seat, in Brussels. In addition, it contained the first-ever attitude survey of MEPs and staff on the monthly transhumance by Zurich University's psychology department.
Fighting Climate Change: Less Meat = Less Heat
Above, the former Beatle is greeted by European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek. The Green Card Edward launched to commemorate the event has key facts about the worldwide effects of livestock production on climate change: meat produces more greenhouse gases - 18% - than the whole transport sector - 13%. On its reverse it displays a meat-free-day's menu and the nutrients in vegetables. In 2006 a 400-page report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) "Livestock's Long Shadow" first identified the livestock industry as the main contributor to greenhouse gases. Edward supports the call by Dr Pachauri, Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that one meat-free day a week is the most effective way of combatting climate change. This campaign is popularised in the UK by Sir Paul with his Meat-Free Monday campaign. MEPs back Missing Child Alert
The 'Maddie Alert' was launched by Kate and Gerry McCann (seen here at a packed Brussels press conference Since 2003, 432 abducted American children have been found - 80 % within the crucial first 72 hours - through the US Justice Department's multimedia alert. In Europe only France has a similar scheme but several EU countries are now committed to developing such procedures, Rights for children in the EU
Edward has assisted several parents in the recovery of children abducted by the other parent. A Scunthorpe mother spoke of her "absolute relief" at a custody decision which allowed her daughter, seven-year-old Jessica Ferguson (centre), to stay in the UK. An earlier court ordered the child to return to Spain to live with her Spanish father, a Benidorm nightclub owner. Helping hill farmersEdward is campaigning for more fairness in the distribution of EU hill farm | Democracy abroad: Edward is Vice-President for Democracy and Human Rights but his commitment to reform started well before the fall of the Berlin Wall.Shortly after his election in 1984, Edward began visiting dissidents in In 1990, Edward proposed a European Democracy Fund to assist the transformation of newly-free countries in East/Central Europe. By 1997 there were 1200 programmes across the region from Moscow to Belgrade. The EU Democracy and Human Rights Instrument today has a budget of some €160M and worldwide scope. It funds a wide range of activities and all the EU election observation missions. It is the only EU Edward co-chairs the Human Rights and Democracy Network of more than 40 Brussels-based NGOs.He was the first politician to visit Cairo after the fall of Mubarak. Click on the picture to see his report. China: Edward campaigns for reform
In October 2010, Edward met the brilliant and courageous artis
Most of the 5 - 7 million prisoners in China's vast gulag are Falun Gong undergoing escalating forms of torture to get them to recant. Click on the picture above to hear Gao Zhisheng's last interview.
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As part of his longstandiung campaign to draw attention to climate change, Edward invited Sir Paul McCartney and Dr Rajendra Pachauri - the UN's climate change chief to speak at his major Brussels hearing on Global Warming and Food Policy: Less Meat = Less Heat on December 3 2009. 
Following a campaign by Edward aimed at improving children's rights across the EU, a majority of MEPs signed a resolution calling for a US-style Europe-wide Missing Child Alert. The scheme is now well on course with 
), whose daughter Madeleine (right) was abducted from a Portuguese resort in May 2007. She has not been found, but her parents believe that her image must be kept in the public mind to assist her receovery, as has happened elsewhere.
Edward has long campaigned for improved child rights across the EU. This has resulted in the inclusion for the first time of the concept of child rights in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. 
subsidies. Whitehall gives UK upland farmers the second-lowest handout in the EU: "The way the British government distributes this subsidy does not take hardship into account" said Edward, from a farming background himself. Here, Yorkshire Dales farmers explain how the British government allocates EU subsidies unfairly. Edward McMillan-Scott pledged to try and get the EU to adopt the same upland policy across all of the EU. 
the ex-Soviet Bloc. Here he discusses democracy with the late Yelena Bonner, wife of Andrei Sakharov, whose 1968 open letter gave moral confort to reformists.
Edward represented the European Parliament at the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony when the prize was awarded to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiabao (left). See also Edward's website 
t Ai Weiwei, who designed the Beijing Olympics 'birds nest' stadium, but refused to attend because he said the regime is "disgusting". On his return to Beijing after this meeting, Ai Weiwei was imprisoned as a warning to other outspoken dissidents.
On 28 Dec 2007 Gao Zhisheng's environmentalist friend Hu Jia (left) was also taken away and sentenced to prison for three and a half years. Edward successfully campaigned with other MEPs for Hu Jia to be awarded the European Parliament's 2008 Sakharov Prize for human rights. . 
Edward McMillan-Scott wrote a key report for the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee on the EU-China Strategy in 1997 as the economic boom accelerated. Even then he sought a more political approach with his slogan, "Not just business-as-usual, but also politics-as-usual". He was a frequent visitor to China and was the first politician to visit Tibet after a three-year ban.