European and External Relations Committee, 03 Mar 2009
Meeting date: Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Official Report
171KB pdf
“Brussels Bulletin”
I invite comments on the bulletin.
On page 3, it says:
"The Czech Prime Minister … in his capacity as President of the European Council, has called for an extraordinary meeting of Heads of Government to address issues surrounding the economic crisis".
Ted Brocklebank and I were aware of that, as a result of our visit to the Czech Republic. Members might be interested to know that until around Christmas and the new year the Czechs were still forecasting growth in their economy, whereas now they hope that the economy will at best remain at a standstill, with zero growth. The crisis has perhaps hurt eastern—or middle—Europe slightly later than it has hurt us.
The development of national biomass action plans is mentioned on page 6. I will be interested to know how the Government's approach compares with that of the rest of Europe.
Ian Duncan, our European officer, has started to use a page in the bulletin to respond to members' queries. Perhaps your point will be covered in the next edition.
It would be remiss of me not to draw attention to Commissioner Borg's forthcoming green paper on the common fisheries policy, which will be launched on 29 April. The commissioner is quoted on page 6 as saying:
"there must be no such thing as a no-go area in the debate on the future of the CFP".
However, the commissioner has
"specifically ruled out the re-nationalisation of fisheries policy",
so there are no-go areas, after all.
You are our rapporteur on the CFP, so we can leave the matter in your competent hands.
I noted that during a speech in the European Parliament, at the start of the Czech presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Czech President compared the experience of further European integration with life in Czechoslovakia during the Soviet era. It says—somewhat delicately—on page 8:
"His speech was not warmly received by the chamber."
Should we write off the six months of the Czech presidency? I do not see what influence the Czech Republic can have, given that not-very-diplomatic start—I know that that is a bit rich, coming from me.
I hope that the European officer will apprise us of developments in the efforts to catch the person who robbed a bank inside the European Parliament in Brussels. I hope that the robber will have been caught before the next "Brussels Bulletin" is published.
Yes. I noticed that item, under the heading "Stand & Deliver".
On page 7, we are told that the Irish referendum is likely to coincide with the European elections in June 2009. That is interesting, because it affects a number of items that relate to our work programme. We had put on hold until October our work on the Lisbon treaty, because we thought that the vote would take place then. It is good that Ian Duncan is keeping us up to date.
It says on page 7 that a paper on the EU health gap was to be published on 16 February. Will the committee get a copy of the paper? It would be interesting to see the figures for the different countries of the EU.
We can certainly ask for that information.
We note the contents of the "Brussels Bulletin". That concludes the public part of the meeting. I thank members of the public for attending.
Meeting continued in private until 12:15.