European and External Relations Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Official Report 339KB pdf

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European Commission Work Programme

Item 3 is the European Commission’s work programme for 2010-14. Ian Duncan, who is with us, has provided a substantial paper that contains a very good analysis of the one-year forward look and the four-year forward look, broken down by their implications for each of our subject committees. It is a good example of the way in which the committee has developed our scrutiny process over the past few months, and has recognised that the Commission’s work programme should form a basis for that.

We had a meeting with colleagues from Sachsen-Anhalt last week while they were visiting the Parliament. When I explained to them some of the measures that we have been taking recently, including consideration of the one-year and four-year forward looks, they were amazed because they had not realised that the European Commission is producing a four-year forward look—and they were from one of the German Länder.

You will recall that we wrote to all the subject committees with the work programme. We have received responses, which are attached to the paper, although we have not yet received responses from the Justice Committee, the Health and Sport Committee and the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee. We await those responses, so the report has to be considered to be an interim report.

Those are probably the key committees, in some ways.

The Rural Affairs and Environment Committee has responded.

I ask Ian Duncan to update us on whether any last-minute responses came in, on the status of the paper, and on what we need to do next.

Absolutely. You are quite correct. The responses from the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee have been received but have not been incorporated into the paper because they arrived too late. I gave a private briefing to that committee last week and can let members know that it is keen to take forward some of the recommendations in the paper that you forwarded to it. As you would imagine, that includes the common fisheries policy, the common agricultural policy and the biodiversity strategy.

I will take members through the paper briefly. It is an interim report because, as the convener rightly pointed out, we are still waiting for some of the big stuff to come in. I will make a couple of points on structure. The Holyrood elections will necessarily set a backstop to the exercise. We are almost halfway through 2010. With the new method, we have the luxury this year that we know the work programme up to 2014, so we have a further horizon to scan across, which is helpful.

The document, as it is set out at the moment, looks at some of the things that the committee might wish to do in the short term, in the medium term, and post election. It then looks at five thematic areas rather than at specific individual proposals. The reason why is that the committee noted at an earlier meeting—as you will recall—that you were keen to get in early, before the proposals are drafted. Clearly, getting involved at the thematic stage just now lends you that opportunity. I have suggested five broad areas that the committee might want to think about exploring in one way or another or, indeed, about leaving as a legacy to your successor committee.

You have already done quite a lot of work on Europe 2020. That is a broad strategy that touches on economic development on one side and social affairs on the other. It is bobbing around at the moment and it will go through the Council in June. We are not sure in what format it will go through, but the document will set a strategy running that will take us right through to the end of the mandate. It will include a lot of material that will have a direct impact on Scotland. I refer both to policies that will be enacted and to funding opportunities, which are important to bear in mind.

The Stockholm justice programme is also important; the Justice Committee is exercised by the issue. The reason why it has not responded to the consultation is that it is setting up a meeting with the Scottish Government, the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Law Society of Scotland and me so that it can get a full grip on what the programme will mean for it. That meeting, which will take place on 29 June, will give the committee a chance to flesh out its thoughts. The Justice Committee will respond to the European and External Relations Committee shortly thereafter.

The third item, which has rolled over from the previous year, is energy and climate change, which is now core to the European Union. Moves towards a common energy policy are likely to be a big issue. Climate change remains the engine of the policy area. There are already moves afoot to see whether the Commission can increase emissions savings from 20 per cent in 2020 to 30 per cent. I am happy to say more about the issue, which is in flux at the moment.

Two more specific policy areas are the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy, both of which are no longer at the starting blocks. The race is now running. The question is this: at what point do the European and External Relations Committee and subject committees wish to join it? It is for members to tell me about engagement, rather than for me to tell them, but at our away day we spoke about different opportunities for members to engage directly with policy players in Brussels and stakeholders here in Scotland, and ways in which the committee could interact with subject committees. A number of options are available to members, even at an interim stage.

You have produced a good paper. Basically, we are talking about early engagement. In paragraphs 13 and 14, on page 4, you talk about indirect engagement. The Parliament will be in recess in July, when the Belgian presidency begins. If anything is forthcoming from the presidency or the Scottish Government, how will we find out exactly what is happening, given that we will not see any paper that is produced until September?

I suppose that it is my job to ensure that you get a paper before it is published. I will try to work my magic. I hope that in the next two or three weeks I will be able to provide the proposals that are likely to emerge during the Belgian presidency, so that you can see them before you head off on the longer break. Members will be aware that, at the moment, the situation is a bit confusing for Belgium, because it does not have a functioning Government. I imagine that the Belgians, too, are looking forward to finding out what is in the paper.

Brussels tends to shut down in August, so we have a slight advantage. If Ian Duncan can produce a forward look for July, we should be back on track in September.

I have a question about the thematic policy areas. Should the issue of structural funds appear somewhere on the list?

You are right. I had envisaged structural funds being part of what might be called broader Europe 2020. You may wish to promote the issue as a separate strand, so that we can take it forward specifically.

It would be useful to include the issue as a specific bullet point, if members are agreed, especially given that the Industrial Communities Alliance has submitted for consideration this morning a paper on the importance of structural funds.

The points that Ian Duncan made about engagement are developed in the papers that we will consider later in the meeting. Do we need to agree anything further today, or should we just note the contents of the paper?

You should note the contents but be prepared to hit the ground running after the summer recess. At that stage, there will be limited time to take matters forward before the Scottish Parliament elections. After the recess, once you have absorbed the material in the paper, you can meet to consider how you wish to commit to engagement. In the meantime, I will continue to monitor and report on the issues that have been sketched out.

Struan Stevenson said that the rotating presidency is still in place. Is there a timescale for bringing that to an end, or is it likely to continue into the foreseeable future?

11:30

I do not think that the rotating presidency will ever end. The holders of the presidency for the next two decades have already been scheduled in, so I do not think that the end of rotation is imminent, although there might be a move towards it as I approach retirement. You never know.

As the committee will be aware, the new President is chair of only a limited number of the Council meetings, particularly the summits. All the others are still chaired by members of the Government that holds the rotating presidency, so from a functional point of view it might be difficult to achieve that ambition. Another treaty might be required for that to happen in the future.

That being the case, and as we are talking about engagement, is it still important for us to engage at an early stage with the incoming presidency, as we did with the Czechs and the Swedes, and as we were going to do with the Spaniards, although it did not turn out that way?

My view is that inviting the ambassador of the relevant country to the committee is a useful forum for such exchanges. The soundings that I am getting are—even Struan Stevenson alluded to this—that the idea will be that as the new post of President of the European Union develops, a lot of the power will be centralised there and the rotating presidency will be more of a bonus for the member state that holds it. When we did the trip to Brussels, we strongly got the message that an EU presidency that was serviced by permanent staff would offer an advantage over a six-month rotating presidency. I think that that is how the system might work in practice, but I invite Ian Duncan to comment.

I agree up to a point, but things happen slowly in Brussels, and I think that it might take quite some time for that position to be reached.

At the moment, the architecture remains broadly the same. The people who write the papers and develop the material are the same—it is just that they are now under slightly different management, if I can put it that way. The holder of the rotating presidency would still argue that it is an important position for that country, although it is no longer as important for its Prime Minister, who no longer gets to chair anything. A holder of the presidency could still use the powers that come with it to kick into touch a proposal that it really did not like. The holder of the presidency will still have powers, not to veto a proposal, but to look the other way, and that will probably continue for some time.

The convener is quite right that there will be a move towards a more unified approach, which will involve allowing the rotating presidency to wither on the vine. Whether that happens remains to be seen.

Watch this space.

That seems to me to be an argument for engaging with the structure in Brussels as it will be until the next treaty, and for continuing the engagement with the incoming holder of the rotating presidency, as Ted Brocklebank said. I was involved in only one such event, but our visit to Sweden and the conversations that we had were extremely useful, particularly the conversations about the justice priorities that had been identified, which I presume is what the Justice Committee has picked up on. It would seem that our interest in what was said to us in Stockholm has borne some fruit in a strange and roundabout way. We recognised that what the Swedes suggested is quite important for European justice issues. That seems to have been borne out by the interest that the Justice Committee has taken in those matters.

Jamie Hepburn wants to comment. I am acutely aware that we still have a budget report and a paper on the Treaty of Lisbon to consider, so we are running a bit late.

I will be very brief. I concur with everything that Patricia Ferguson said. We found out things on our trip to Stockholm that we would not have found out if we had not gone.

I want to pick up on what Ian Duncan said about the division that exists between meetings of the Council that will be chaired by the recently appointed President and those that will continue to be chaired by the ministers of the relevant member state. Do you have any idea of the nature of that division?

The new President chairs what we would recognise as the summits—the quarterly meetings of the heads of state and government. That is his principal engagement. The high representative now also chairs—as you would expect—the external affairs component that the vice-president of the Commission once chaired when holding the same title. Those two are the only councils that are separated off; all the others remain exactly as they were, and are chaired by a Government minister of the country that holds the rotating presidency. That is unlikely to change in the short term. It was a difficult thing to have brought about. As the committee will be aware, both the new President and high representative are structuring their staff to allow this to work and to work well.

Can you give the numbers—

In terms of meetings?

Yes.

Herman Van Rompuy will chair four meetings and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs will chair 10 meetings.

How many is that?

Okay. Now we come to the multiplication factor. Let me see—

We are challenging you today.

I am tempted to say that I will come back to the committee on that one; my multiplication skills are quite poor. I think that we end up with something like 42 meetings.

The majority?

Yes. The majority will be chaired under the current arrangements. I ask the committee not to quote me on the exact figure. I did it off the top of my head and I am not renowned for doing that.

As Patricia Ferguson rightly said, it would be an error to ignore entirely the rotating presidencies. As members would expect, those who are involved in the presidencies are still players in the operation. Bringing in the ambassador would be one way to engage with those who are involved in that way.

In terms of my engagement, I tend to be able to engage less with the holders of the presidency, who are at their busiest during the presidency. I tend to engage with those in the official structure in the commission; those with more time. I tend to engage with the official architecture and not with the political architecture that comes with the rotating presidency.

Thank you. We have made our bids for our international strategy and our look at the Brussels office. I think that that will afford us the opportunity to meet representatives of the holder of the next presidency—Belgium—in Belgium, if we so wish. That is pretty much agreed. The opportunity to do that is in place.

Do members agree to note the contents of the paper? In so doing, are we agreed that it is an interim response to which we will add outstanding comments, as and when they are received?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you for all the work that you have done on the paper, Ian.

I thank members of the public for their attendance today. We have agreed to discuss the remainder of our business in private.

11:37 Meeting continued in private until 12:28.