European and External Relations Committee, 06 Jun 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Official Report 330KB pdf

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Pre and Post-council Scrutiny

We move on to our regular scrutiny of the agendas and reports of European Council meetings. Members will note that one paper that we were expecting, on the economic and financial affairs—ECOFIN—council, is not included in the papers because it has not yet been received. I hope that it will be included in the papers for our next meeting. Do members have any comments on the others?

There is obviously some movement on the requirement to tender for rail and road services—under land transport on page 5—which seems to me to be contrary to what is happening with ferries. I find it quite difficult to understand where there is a change of direction in regard to requiring authorities to tender services that require financial support or exclusive rights. If there is no longer a requirement to tender for rail and road services, why is there still a requirement to tender for marine services? It might be useful to find out whether the Commission intends to do any further work on that. Do you see where I am coming from? The paper says:

"The EU Transport Ministers held a first substantive debate at the last TTE Council on 27 March. The proposal would not require authorities to tender services requiring financial support or exclusive rights"

on rail and roads, so why not ferries?

We can ask.

I do not know the answer. There might be a perfectly logical reason. There seems to be a lightening of the hand, but why only on two modes of transport?

Would you like us to write to the Commission to ask it why?

Yes—just out of sheer curiosity. It would be useful to understand that better.

On page 13, there is a comment on fisheries. It states:

"The UK led calls from several Member States that measures should deliver a profitable industry which can pay for its own investments and which was characterised by fleet capacity to match available resources."

I am delighted that the UK has led the call, but it has already led the way on the issue. I wonder what kind of response it got to the call and whether other nations will now comply with the lines that the UK has taken. That is important from the point of view of having a level playing field for our fishing industry.

We could ask for more information about what the responses were to the UK-led call.

That will do me.

I note that the pre-council agenda of the agriculture and fisheries council of 19 June includes a policy debate on a proposal for a council directive on protection of chickens. That has been outstanding for some time—in fact, I recently lodged a question on it—and is all the more important given concerns about the possibility of avian flu. I know that pre-council agendas are subject to change, but it will be worth our while to note from the post-council agenda whether any discussion takes place on the issue. I would certainly be interested to see the results of any such discussion—the matter is important for Scotland.