Official Report 269KB pdf
Our next agenda item concerns the regular tracking paper on the Commission's work programme. Do members have any comments? It is a short paper this month.
Commendably so.
Irene Oldfather made some comments about parameters and I think that Bruce Crawford added that the levels of payment excluded the kind of companies that we have in Scotland. What was the final version of the situation? How does it impact on business in Scotland?
I have not seen the European Parliament's debate on the matter, which took place last week, on 13 December. The position that I outlined was the one that the Committee of the Regions agreed to put to the European Commission. My understanding is that the European Parliament has produced a slightly less favourable version, but I am happy to look into that and report back to the committee. I do not believe that the European Parliament set the threshold at the same level as the Committee of the Regions had done.
Can I interrupt for a moment? Nobody has actually said what we are talking about, which is the European globalisation adjustment fund.
I apologise—thanks very much for that, convener.
I do not want this to be taken as gospel, but I believe that a threshold of 500 workers was agreed on, which is significant for Scotland. One suggestion that I mentioned in the presentation that I gave on the issue at a previous committee meeting was on the doubling of the available funds which, in essence, have been made up of money that is not used—they are the underspend within structural funding. I do not think that the European Parliament agreed to that, but I am not sure.
The clerk has just reminded me that we have written to the Scottish Executive on the specific question that arose during the previous meeting. We await a response.
Did we write on the services directive, which has now gone through and which has been warmly welcomed in some quarters? I would like to know what the directive means for Scotland and what the Executive sees as the opportunities and shortcomings in it.
The committee could certainly write to the Executive asking for its view. As the paper says, the directive is expected to be published in January or February 2007. I understand that it will take about three years for it to be brought in.
The European Parliament has approved the directive, so now is the time to act. We keep saying that we should get in early and find out what measures mean and what the opportunities are. We should make progress on that basis and ensure that the Executive also does so.
I agree fully with Phil Gallie on the services directive. We should also ask the Scottish Parliament information centre for its view on what the directive will mean. I am sure that the Executive will point out what it thinks will be the benefits or disbenefits of the directive, but a wider view might be useful. I have heard the directive discussed recently in relation to the employment of disabled people through organisations such as Remploy. It was suggested that the directive might give a procurement advantage and help industry in that way. We heard today about small and medium-sized enterprises; the directive might be able to help by bending some of the spend to allow innovation and projects to come through from SMEs. It would be useful to know what avenues we could open up in relation to the directive.
I am sure that Iain McIver of SPICe will be delighted to get on to that immediately.
We should not forget our European officer, who could, I am sure, update us on some of the issues.
We will have a joint effort. I am sure that it will be wonderful.