European and External Relations Committee, 06 Jun 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Official Report 330KB pdf

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European Commission Work Programme 2006

The third item is our regular paper tracking the items in the European Commission's work programme that the committee has identified as being potentially important to Scotland. There is also an update on the European Commission's plan D for democracy, dialogue and debate. Do members have any comments?

I would like to link comments on plan D with issues that we will discuss later—the sift paper relates directly to plan D, so perhaps we could discuss that when we discuss the sift paper.

Okay. Are there any other comments?

On the European Institute of Technology, I notice that what is being considered seems to have changed a bit. Is there anything in that item worth bidding for? The idea was all virtual before, but it seems to be even more so now.

Yes—it seems to be even more virtual than it was when it started. We really just have to track the information as it comes through. Having looked at some of the reports that I got back from Alyn Smith MEP, for example, I still do not understand fully what was being talked about. However, we expect to receive a communication on 8 June, so I hope that when we meet on 20 June we will be able to be a bit more firm on what is actually happening.

The idea of establishing

"a governing body to oversee a network of ‘knowledge communities' drawn from business and the tertiary education sector"

could be positive, but equally, it could be a heavy hand that stifles innovation rather than promotes it.

Yes. The tracking paper also says that

"Knowledge transfer remains at the heart of the proposal."

We are all highly relieved to hear that, I think.

We will have more of an idea at the next committee meeting after we have received the communication that we expect.