Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee
Meeting date: Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Official Report
420KB pdf
European Commission Work Programme
Agenda item 6 is the European Commission work programme, which is about the European Union priorities for engagement and scrutiny. Following the Scottish Parliament’s agreement of the strategy, subject committees are required to review the European Commission work programme and select specific strategic priorities, reporting their decisions to the European and External Relations Committee in advance of a debate on the work programme and parliamentary priorities for action.
I refer members to paper 5, and I welcome Iain McIver, the Scottish Parliament information centre researcher, who will help us to get through this. Jamie Hepburn, the committee’s European reporter, will make a few opening remarks.
Thank you, convener. I will address my remarks to paper 5, which I hope that members have had a chance to read. The substance of the paper is in the annex. I thank Iain McIver for his assistance in preparing the paper; it is good to have him here today to answer any detailed questions that members might have.
The annex to paper 5 sets out nine current and forthcoming EU topics that are relevant to our remit. Before members comment, it might be useful for me to explain what the adoption of our EU priorities might mean for the committee’s work. It is probably fair to say that not every topic will merit further and detailed action by the committee at this stage or, indeed, further down the line. For example, one of the topics is not planned for introduction until 2014. Some of the issues have been raised just to make us aware of them and we can come back to them later.
If we agree our EU priorities, the system of having an EU reporter will allow us to continue to monitor the issues and the Parliament’s EU adviser will include regular updates in the “Brussels Bulletin”, which will continue to be circulated to members. Any areas that are of particular concern to our remit will be highlighted. Should it become clear that there is scope for further engagement by the committee, that can be brought to the committee’s attention and we will then decide what to do. Planning further work will, of course, need to take account of our existing work commitments.
On possible courses of action, the ideal position is for us to ensure that relevant EU issues are scrutinised during our existing work programme so that we can work them into things that we are already doing. For example, two topics that are listed in today’s annex are related to the digital issue. There is the review of state aid for broadband and the digital agenda for Europe. I was able to raise those issues today with the cabinet secretary, which demonstrates that the commitment need not be too onerous.
Another useful course of action would be to write to the Scottish Government seeking information on how it plans to engage on a particular topic. We do that regularly anyway, and we could do it straight away with the nine EU topics that are on the list for today. Of course, any response that we receive could assist us in deciding whether any further action would be beneficial or whether none is needed, either now or in the future.
I do not suppose that we need to decide on any specific course of action today, but I suggest that a good way forward would be to agree the list of topics as our EU priorities. As I have said, others might emerge. It would also be useful to write to the Scottish Government to get information on how it plans to engage on each of the topics. In the meantime, any developments on the topics will continue to be monitored and the committee updated accordingly.
As no one has any comments, I invite members to agree to consider and adopt the priorities set out in the annex to paper 5, to follow relevant issues in the course of its current work programme as appropriate, and to write to the Scottish Government for information on how it plans to engage with the proposals and whether any are likely to involve subsidiarity issues. Are we agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
Does that mean that Iain McIver gets off scot free? I am very disappointed.
It looks like it, but that is because he did all the work prior to coming here and it is all well set out in the paper. Thank you, Iain.
11:43
Meeting continued in private until 11:53.