European and External Relations Committee, 18 Jan 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Official Report 99KB pdf

---

Sift

Item 3 is the sift paper, EU/S2/05/01/2. I invite members to turn to the section on documents of special importance. The first document that is referred to is the fourth European innovation scoreboard, which has been produced as part of the Lisbon process. The material is relevant to us in the context of the work priorities of the Commission—which we await—which, I suspect, will focus heavily on the Lisbon agenda's implications. The EIS document is particularly relevant to the Enterprise and Culture Committee and we will draw its attention to it.

The second document, again, is relevant to the Enterprise and Culture Committee. It sets out an update of the multi-annual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship. I suspect that that will fit into the Enterprise and Culture Committee's inquiry into business growth.

The third document is a proposal for a Council regulation on fishing, which is of relevance to the Environment and Rural Development Committee, as are the two documents on the regulatory environment for the common fisheries policy. The latter of those two documents might also have implications for the Subordinate Legislation Committee's inquiry into the regulatory framework for Scotland.

Those are the key points that arise on that section. Do members have any points?

I thought that we would discuss the Commission's proposal for a Council decision on information extracted from criminal records, which is mentioned on page 3 of the main sift document. I have received various inquiries—as I suspect most of us have—about how Disclosure Scotland might fit into that and whether it has been asked for its view. That is quite important.

We could certainly inquire about that. Our general approach has been to encourage other committees to become more involved in the consideration of European issues, and the justice committees have been particularly active about raising their awareness of issues on the justice and home affairs council's agenda. Therefore, we can certainly write to ministers and copy the letter to the convener of the relevant justice committee.