Official Report 514KB pdf
Item 5 is the “Brussels Bulletin”. Are there any questions or comments?
In case it had not already been spotted, the comments that I made about gender violence were made in relation to the “Brussels Bulletin” and not the Committee of the Regions report. I should correct that for the record.
I did realise that, but I did not want to correct you in mid flow.
There was a question about shipping emissions regulations and their impact on Rosyth. From what I have read in the press, I understand that the Scottish Government has successfully negotiated a way forward with the relevant company and Forth Ports. I raised the issue with the minister, so can we can follow that up and ask for a report on where that situation is and what the Scottish Government’s position is?
On employment, skills and education, it would be good to get a copy of, or a link to, the speech by the Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility, and more information on how the growth and investment package and the European social fund relate to us here in Scotland rather than just generally.
It would also be quite good to get the report about informal learning and the Scottish credit and qualifications framework.
We have got all that down and can chase it up for you.
I was interested in the couple of paragraphs on the Europe-wide energy union, which is obviously particularly relevant to Scotland. There are notions of decarbonisation of the European energy mix and further investment in research and innovation, which is particularly relevant to this week’s announcement about a couple of our wave power companies being in trouble. European state-aid rules were also mentioned in that context. It might therefore be useful to get an indication of how Scotland will play into that from the Scottish Government or whoever is responsible for those subjects.
We have got that. Are there any other comments?
There is a section on page 4 about creative industries. It has come up at the committee previously that there appear to be opportunities for media companies throughout the European Union, and in Scotland in particular, to exploit initiatives. How are our small and medium-sized enterprises or other organisations that might have an interest made aware of the opportunities? Is there any way of getting the “Brussels Bulletin” out to a wider audience? I am sure that it is posted online, but signposting of such things is often the key step in helping people to find out anything. I am sure that there are companies that would be interested in the initiatives.
The clerk has just reminded me that the last time we talked about this we raised the point directly with organisations. Scotland Europa is obviously limited in terms of the scope that it has for contacting people but this committee can certainly do some of that through the work that it does.
It might just be an issue of signposting, as Willie Coffey said. It is always an issue when we talk about any European funding that comes through Scotland. How do people access it? How do they know that it is there? It is about raising awareness. Scottish Enterprise does a bit of that, as does Scotland Europa, but perhaps it is incumbent on us all to do a bit more to raise awareness.
One of the initiatives is about exploiting and preserving cultural heritage throughout Europe. There is bound to be a mountain of material around that that is not digitised or protected for future generations. There are lots of companies in Scotland and throughout the EU that would like to participate in something like that, and finding out that it is possible for them to become involved is a key step. Anything that raises the awareness of companies here in Scotland would be welcome.
Skillset—the creative industry’s sector skills council—might be the place to go because it works with lots of individual companies from small ones to large ones.
The “Brussels Bulletin” should be on the Parliament website anyway. I know where Willie Coffey is coming from when he talks about sharing it with industry itself. It might be an idea to share it with Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Natural Heritage and other such organisations. We could share the link and make sure that their websites also carry it. That might be another way of doing it, but we would probably have to have a conversation with those organisations about sharing this type of information in the future. It was a good point to bring up and it is worthy of chasing up.
On the first page of the “Brussels Bulletin” is the Juncker investment plan, which states quite categorically that this is not new money but repackaged money. The last time that we discussed it, we thought that it was new money. That is an interesting insight. It also looks like the plan is going to be focused on infrastructure, but it does not really define whether that would be capital projects or digital infrastructure, for example. Perhaps we should be keeping a close eye on where Mr Juncker is going with his repackaged money and on the fact that the European Investment Bank will take a much bigger interest in the plan. The whole package of matched funding seems to be much more reliant on private investment, which might have an impact on local authorities’ and third sector organisations’ access to it. We need to keep a weather eye on that and ask for some deeper detail.
Are we happy to leave the “Brussels Bulletin” at that point and to bring it to the attention of relevant committees across the Parliament?
Members indicated agreement.
Thank you. We will suspend for a few minutes to allow our visitors to take their seats for the round table.
09:22 Meeting suspended.