European Committee, 09 Nov 1999

Meeting date: Tuesday, November 9, 1999

Official Report 235KB pdf

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Forward Work Programme

Stephen Imrie will bring us up to date on what has been happening with the consultation process. We seem to be getting a good response. Once all the responses are in, the committee will have to do a major piece of work.

We expect to receive more than 50 responses to the consultation exercise from a wide range of organisations and individuals. We have received about 40 so far. The deadline has not been strictly enforced as we wanted to encourage people to send in responses. We will compile the responses into a summary document that will extract the key issues and will list everyone who has come back to us with evidence.

A number of issues flow from this, some of which we will deal with later today.

We will have to consult many of the organisations that have submitted evidence, particularly Scottish local government through the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. There is a request for representatives of COSLA to meet this committee. I suggest that we invite them to our next meeting, on 23 November. Is that agreed?

Members indicated agreement.

It has been suggested—I will deal with this when I report on the meeting of the conveners group—that we should take the committee out of Edinburgh occasionally and also consider the use of rapporteurs on specific items.

Once the responses to the consultation have been collated, we will need to do two things. We will have to appoint rapporteurs to meet specific organisations and discuss specific topics so that the committee can start to discuss issues of policy. We will also have to use the responses to consider whom we need to meet outside Edinburgh. That will have to be done soon so that arrangements can be made before the end of this financial year. If the clerk can produce a paper summarising the evidence for the meeting on 23 November, we can start to discuss whom we should meet, where we should meet them and what the key issues are for the appointment of rapporteurs. Between that meeting and the first meeting in December, we can firm up the committee's programme for the first months of next year. Is that agreed?

You have asked us in the past—and I apologise that I have not responded—to identify to you any areas related to rapporteurships in which we have a particular interest. Would it be appropriate to try to collate those by 23 November? An area that particularly interests me is the challenge and opportunity that enlargement presents for Scotland and how Scotland could face up to that challenge.

I am not taking bids at this meeting. If anyone has a specific interest, they should notify the committee clerk and it will be considered, along with the responses from other organisations. You are right that enlargement, the euro, on which you have done some work, social economy issues and various justice issues that we have considered are major items for this committee. However, many organisations in Scotland will have particular interests. We need to consider where those interests coincide with our priorities. I hope that, in the next two meetings, we can firm up our agenda for the first few months of next year, identify whom we need to meet and where, and appoint rapporteurs on specific topics.

Our German guests have arrived. Can we allow the meeting to flow, as some people have to leave? I will deal quickly with items 5 and 6, and we will return to our guests.