European and External Relations Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Official Report 545KB pdf

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Brussels Visit

Item 4 dovetails nicely—it is on our visit to Brussels, which we all enjoyed greatly and learned a lot from. I put on record our thanks to the Commission, the clerks and everyone who was involved in hosting, organising and paying for our visit. The committee’s thanks are duly recorded.

Members have a paper with a suggested course of action. I invite members to give their opinions, comments and ideas.

If you will indulge me, convener, I have a number of questions to ask—for clarity for myself. The first line of the fourth paragraph of the report states:

“Each of the categories outlined above are expected to have some overlap.”

What does “some overlap” mean?

The idea was that the particular proposals are not mutually exclusive. There could be different ways of drawing funds from different sources for common projects, so there might be some overlap in the themes that are proposed.

The next paragraph states that the programmes

“will be governed by a code of conduct.”

Which code of conduct is that?

That is the one that was outlined by Emma Udwin.

Refresh my memory if you can, because I do not know which code of conduct you are referring to.

The proposal is that, as the new schemes are developed, there will be a code of conduct that will govern—

So there will be a code of conduct. I take it that no draft is available.

Not as yet.

Okay.

There are a lot of acronyms.

Yes—JESSICA, JASPERS and JEREMIE. They are triplets.

I knew that you were going to ask about that. How about I write to you to say what they are? I have an idea, but I cannot remember, either.

Perhaps you could write to the rest of the committee as well.

I will write to you on that.

I would be grateful for that.

I used to know what they meant, but it has slipped away.

16:15

My final comment is that, although I found the visit educational and rewarding and I thoroughly enjoyed the learning process, I came away with the feeling that the regional committees that operate in the European Union are not very clear and concise. In some instances, regions are allowed to represent themselves—one example that was given was of a Scottish representative being allowed to lead on a committee that spoke about sports. However, in other cases, regions do not lead. I came away with the view that the governance of the European Union is not quite focused. Some regional committees have direct representation, but others do not. Sometimes, regional representatives are accepted and sometimes they are not. Under the current rules, only the host Government has clear representation. However, there are shades of grey. I just wonder what part of the grey area Scotland comes into.

Historically, since the European Union was set up, there has been constant change, but the committee structures and the representation from the regions has not changed. I am keen to ask our ministers how they feel that we should be represented. It is clear that the European Union is not focused on the issue, but decisions need to be made. Should we take the initiative to instigate change?

In talking about regional committees, are you talking about the Council designations?

Yes.

The Council meetings involve the member states—that is how the treaties function. It is for individual member states to determine how to draw up their delegations. A member state such as Belgium can decide that a regional representative may lead, but that is a matter for the member state to resolve. The Commission will never step into that—it will always accept the member state’s sovereignty in that regard. Broadly, that has not changed throughout the existence of the Council. The member state has always been paramount, although the competences of the EU have expanded significantly. You alluded to the sports council. At its most recent meeting, a Scottish Government minister—I believe that it was Shona Robison—represented the UK.

I will interrupt you for a second. The point that I am trying to make, and that we need to recognise, is that the European Union has changed significantly over the years, as have member states. When the European Union was established, we did not have a Scottish Parliament or National Assembly for Wales. Many other states now have similar governance arrangements. The political situation has changed and people such as me are now accountable to our constituents on European issues. I need to know how to represent those interests. Given that the set-up has changed, should we not have discussions on that issue?

We took evidence on that in the context of the Scotland Bill a couple of months ago. We discussed all those issues and, as far as I recall it, our conclusion was that the rights of Scottish ministers to participate should be a given and it should be up to the UK Government to justify non-participation, so there should be a presumption in favour of the Scottish Government minister at least attending the relevant Council meeting at which the key issues were being discussed.

Obviously, in the light of developments last Friday, far from having the UK in the room, it seems that we will have nobody in the room. That brings us back to our previous discussion.

Yes, the Scotland Bill Committee is already engaging with that issue. I understand that it has finalised its report—

It is working through the night tonight to finalise it.

I beg your pardon—the Scotland Bill Committee has nearly finalised its report, which will be transmitted to the UK Government and it will respond formally. That might offer us a starting point from which to explore the issue, depending on the UK Government’s response. That would be a useful way to start.

Given the developments in Europe, with the UK Government making the decision that it has and leaving us almost in the lurch, if I can use that language, representation is a more important issue than it has been historically. It is therefore important that we focus on this area of work. I would welcome ministers’ comments once the Scotland Bill has been finalised.

That would be lovely; it is an important issue.

Are there any other comments on the paper from the Brussels visit?

I have one point about an issue that I raised. The heading on page 5 is “Azalan”, when I think that it is meant to be Asulam.

Is Asulam not the lion in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”? [Laughter.]

The misspelling is my fault.

I thought that I had better mention it. The point is that the company’s product is called Asulox and I now have the information on it, which I will send to João Pacheco. Funnily enough, I wrote to him previously about electronic identification, because I thought that it was EID that I had questioned him about, but it turned out to have been Asulam.

That is noted.