European Committee, 12 Feb 2002

Meeting date: Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Official Report 176KB pdf

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Convener's Report

I suggested that it would be a good idea for the committee to receive a regular report back from the European Committee of the Regions. We have never received such reports before, but until now the Parliament has not technically had representatives on the Committee of the Regions. This is the committee to which those reports should be made.

I have not provided members with a written report, because I returned from Brussels only last week and because the first meeting of the Committee of the Regions is generally the meeting at which the make-up of committees, positions and chairmanships is agreed. There is not a great deal to report regarding substantive policy issues. However, I am happy to update members on some of the things that happened at the COR last week.

The presidency of the Committee of the Regions went to a Scot, Sir Albert Bore. Although Sir Albert is the leader of Birmingham City Council, he is a Scot—born in Ayrshire, I am happy to say, at Auchinleck. He is a member of the European Socialist Party and will hold the position for two years. Halfway through the COR's mandate, the presidency will be transferred to the first vice-president, Mr Eduardo Zaplana Hernández-Soro, from Valencia in Spain. Mr Zaplana is a member of the European Popular Party, which is basically a Christian Democrat party.

Scots did reasonably well at last week's meeting. Christine May was elected to the bureau of the Committee of the Regions, which is the key ruling group. I was elected as vice-president of the European Socialist Party group, which puts me on to the bureau of that group. Keith Brown, who is the leader of Clackmannanshire Council, was nominated as the European Alliance Group delegate to the alternate position on the convention to prepare the reform of the EU institutions.

Scottish members were also elected to various commissions of the COR. I am on the commission for economic and social policy. The First Minister and Christine May are on the commission for constitutional affairs and European governance. Nicol Stephen is on the commission for territorial cohesion policy, which is a very important commission. Irene McGugan is on the commission for culture and education, Corrie McChord is on the commission for sustainable development and Keith Brown is on the commission for external affairs. Unfortunately, I did not notice to which commission Hugh Halcro-Johnston was elected, as he was not present at last week's meeting.

Where is the Conservative representative?

That is a good question.

I think that you will find that we were stitched up and that we do not have one.

That is a matter for the Conservative group.

Do the Conservatives have any councillors in Scotland?

That is an argument for another day.

I hope that my report on the first meeting of the Committee of the Regions was helpful. I would be happy to identify for members issues that are raised at commission and plenary meetings of the COR. I would be happy to e-mail other COR members, particularly those who are also members of the Parliament, to ask them to advise the European Committee of any issues with a Scottish dimension that could usefully be discussed by the committee.

It will be a few months before things start to happen. The commission of which I am a member will not meet until April. There is another plenary meeting of the COR next month. At that meeting, we will discuss reports and opinions that are still coming through from the previous mandate. The commissions that have been established are all new. There used to be eight of them, but their remits have now been condensed into six. All will consider their forward work programmes at their meetings in April. I would be happy to keep members apprised of what is happening.

What discussions have taken place in the Committee of the Regions—and any other committees of which you are aware—on membership of the convention that will deal with the future governance of the European Union? Recently there has been criticism in the media of the fact that the Scottish Parliament will not be directly represented at that very important convention, although it will have some Scottish representatives, through the COR and so on. Can you explain to us in more detail what is going on? I do not recall the European Committee discussing that matter in detail. If it is true that the Scottish Parliament will not be directly represented at the convention, that is a pity.

Convention places are allocated in a number of ways. There are three representatives for the United Kingdom: Peter Hain, Gisela Stuart and David Heathcoat-Amory. They are the three member-state representatives of the United Kingdom on the convention. I understand that a working party will be set up to influence the discussions that the delegation will take forward to the convention. The Committee of the Regions was allocated six full places and six alternate places on the convention with, one might say, observer status. Those places were divided up among the political groups, and it was up to the political groups on the COR to agree their nominees.

There is a delicate balance between delegations, political groups and member states. The outcome is that there are six full places for the Committee of the Regions. I can really speak only about the discussions of the socialist group, because that is the group of which I am a member. The group was allocated two full places last week, one of which went to Manfred Dammeyer. I have had initial discussions with him. Members will recall that he gave evidence to this committee's governance inquiry as part of the delegation from the COR. Manfred is from North Rhine-Westphalia and is keen to have discussions with the committee. I have advised him that we have produced our governance report and that we will make a copy available to him.

The committee should set a date for meetings. One meeting should be to discuss our governance report with members of the UK delegation. Members will recall that when Peter Hain came to the committee we referred to such a meeting. Subsequently, he wrote to the committee and said that he would be happy to come back and meet the committee. That would be one opportunity to discuss our views with members of the UK delegation.

We could also discuss our views with regional and local government representatives, who will be advising the Committee of the Regions on how to progress. We also have the European members information liaison exchange—EMILE—working group, which is meeting on Thursday. That group is about bringing together members of political parties, local government, the Parliament, the Executive and the European Parliament—all the key players in Europe who are in Scotland—and working together as a team to inform and influence viewpoints. That is a summary of how we arrived at the convention position from the viewpoint of the COR.

Yes, but is it the case that the Scottish Parliament is not directly represented on the convention? How is it that we, as the European Committee of the Scottish Parliament, seem to have been excluded from the prior discussions about who should have the opportunity to have his or her name put forward to be a member of the convention? It seems strange that we read about these things in the media. I have not noticed it on the agenda of our committee. We seem to have missed the boat, and I wonder why. Is somebody deliberately conspiring against us?

His name is Romano Prodi.

I do not think that there is any conspiracy against us, Dennis. The committee has made clear its view in the governance report that it is our preference to have some direct representation. That report has been passed on to Peter Hain. We have written to him about membership of the convention and he has written back to say that, although the committee will not have direct representation on the convention, he would be willing to come to the committee and to engage in discussions about how the UK will take matters forward. There are two routes into the convention, of which one is the Committee of the Regions. Believe me, other regions in Europe may be asking the same questions today. Not everyone can be on the convention, as only six places were available.

The UK delegation took the presidency of the Committee of the Regions, and once one has a senior position such as the presidency, it is quite difficult to obtain other positions if only two or three are available. The French, the Germans, the Italians and the Spanish all think, "We cannot give everything to the UK. They're doing pretty well. They've got the presidency of the COR." We must negotiate, share and work together in partnership. We might want to argue for our position, but, at the end of the day, we must work with other people. That is what is being done on this occasion.

I must express my gross dissatisfaction. It is a disgrace that the Scottish Parliament is not directly represented on the convention.

It would be fair to say that we included in our report direct representation as our first preference. We have written to Peter Hain and Jack McConnell about that, but at the end of the day, the number of places is limited and Parliaments throughout Europe wanted places at the convention. This is about competition. The fact that a Scot is president of the Committee of the Regions and a member of the UK delegation gives us an opportunity to influence the discussion. I am happy to invite him to the committee. Likewise, I am happy to invite to the committee other colleagues from regional Parliaments throughout Europe with whom we are working.

I appreciate that offer, but let us face reality. The presidency of the Committee of the Regions is really not that influential in relation to the convention. The chair of the Committee of the Regions might happen to be a native Scot, but his politics are not my politics. It is irrelevant to discuss him—or any other Scot—simply because of where he was born. For example, Andrew Neil is a Scot, but I have nothing in common with him.

The convener said that there are only two ways in, but to say that is to accept the position that has been handed down from above, rather than to address what is beginning to develop in Europe.

The convention is not going to be as straightforward as Romano Prodi or the large nation states want it to be. There is enormous criticism of and reaction against the structure. Two weeks ago, I attended a meeting in Brussels at which an organisation—with a secretariat and offices—was formed in order to lobby the convention, the Commission and the Parliament on behalf of the stateless nations. The organisation is led by senior members of the Basque Parliament and senior members of local governments of Brittany, Corsica and Sardinia. The meeting lasted all day and involved people who have more experience than we do in this area. They made it clear that the nation states' approach means—as Dennis Canavan said—that we will have no voice. We should not accept, or fail to understand, the implications of a constitution for Europe and how that will supersede current constitutions or, in the case of the UK, the lack of a constitution. The new constitution will change all our lives in the not-too-distant future. The year 2004 is not very far away.

I suggest that we need to speak to other bodies that are not structures of the European Parliament or Commission. We need to speak to people from Flanders, who are fighting their corner from within a nation state—Belgium—but with the full support of that nation state, which wants total access to the convention for Wallonia and Flanders. There is asymmetry in that approach.

The point is that they have not won that argument. Although we could argue about representation, the first meeting—which will examine how the convention will proceed—is in 10 days' time. It is more important to go to the meeting and to argue the points that are important to Scotland than it is to spend time arguing about representation, which has already been decided.

It has not been decided—that is the key point.

It has.

Do you think that the decision about representation is absolutely fixed in stone? It will not remain fixed in stone if Belgium decides to pull out, which has been suggested. Let us be realistic. What is Ireland's position on the matter, post-Nice?

The fact of the matter is—

Will Ireland participate fully in the convention?

My understanding is that Ireland will participate fully.

It will on condition that there is acknowledgement that Ireland has rejected the Nice treaty.

That is not a matter for the European Committee. We should stick to things that are matters for the committee. Would another member like to come in before we move on?

Although I do not have the same views as Lloyd Quinan, I regret that what was a parliamentary issue at Westminster became a party-political issue. The European Scrutiny Committee at Westminster put forward two nominations, but the parties got hold of the nominations and changed them. It is regrettable that the House of Commons' committee's nominations will not represent the United Kingdom. Jimmy Hood was very upset that he was moved along.

Nevertheless, I would be keen to invite the Westminster representatives to speak to us. We should—as long as he guarantees not to bang on about the euro again—also invite the Minister for Europe, Peter Hain, who is to replace David Miliband.

To be fair, Peter Hain was asked about the euro.

A deal was struck and it is important that we at least have that access. As far as I know, it is almost set in stone that we cannot send more people. I do not know how many regional governments or stateless nation governments there are in Europe, but if they were all involved, there would be about 700 people at the convention.

There would still not be a Tory representative.

I believe that anything that is decided at the convention will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny in the member states. Then, members of Parliament for the respective parties in this room could feed influence from this country into Westminster. I would expect that. I hope that the five SNP MPs and our MP would be able to do that.

It is a good point that we must concentrate on establishing relationships with the various working parties that will inform the discussions through the United Kingdom and the Committee of the Regions. The working group of the Committee of the Regions will meet in 10 days' time and I imagine that the UK working group will meet soon, too. It is important that we influence those discussions. Perhaps we could give the clerk the task of making contact with both groups to identify how to put in place a programme. We could invite the minister and representatives from the UK working group to meet us to discuss our views.

I have a question.

I want to move on—we have had a good discussion about the matter.

It is a very straightforward question. How will we represent the different political views that exist in this country?

The European Committee is made up of members of different parties. I dare say that members are well placed to ensure that their views are put to the representatives from the UK Government. You also have Keith Brown—a member of the Scottish National Party—as an alternate. I dare say that you will be able to have discussions.

The European members information liaison exchange network was set up to bring together representatives from all tiers of Government in Scotland. I hope that the European Parliament, local government, the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Executive and all political parties will play a team Scotland game to advance Scotland's interests. That will be important. Our first meeting is on Thursday. That will provide an input for the European Committee, because the committee will be represented on the EMILE group. There is certainly a clear strategy for the way forward, and we should put in place a timetable for dealing with the issue.

I record my disagreement with the statement that there is a clear strategy. I do not believe that there is.

Okay.