European and External Relations Committee, 20 Jun 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Official Report 131KB pdf

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Pre and Post-council Scrutiny

Item 4 is our regular scrutiny of agendas and reports of meetings of the Council of the European Union. Do members have any comments on paper EU/S2/06/10/3?

Page 5 of our paper refers to a directive on priority hazardous substances in water and says:

"Defra propose to hold meetings with stakeholders on the Commission proposals. The Scottish Executive is working with Defra on these proposals".

I would like to understand what that is about. Does the directive concern drinking water or river water? What are the issues? Such a directive might end up having a significant effect on Scottish Water and its profile for the next four years, which I think it is to announce this week. The earlier we know about a new directive on priority hazardous substances that goes beyond the previous water directive, the better.

We can ask for more information on that.

I have a question that probably links in with the work that Jim Wallace is doing. Page 7 gives information on better regulation. What thoughts does the Scottish Executive have on that? Has it given input? Has it expressed our concern that we are being tied up by regulation that comes from Europe, rather than by how we implement that regulation, although the Executive should consider that anyhow? It would be interesting to know the Scottish Executive's response.

We can make that inquiry. The information may well be useful to Jim Wallace's work.

I have a point about the post-council report on the education, youth and culture council on page 15. The committee has examined statistics on language learning and I note that Mr Peacock attended the council meeting on 19 May. At that meeting, it was agreed that

"pupils should be tested in two foreign languages at the end of … level II (ages 9-14 in the UK). However, in those Member States where only one foreign language was taught at that level, testing of the second language would be at … 15 – 19 and therefore after the end of compulsory education in the UK".

It would be interesting to ask the Executive what plans or progress will be made to meet those objectives, which are substantial. It is not clear from the report whether the UK will fall into the second or the first category; I am not sure.

We can certainly write and ask about that. The matter has come up many times at the committee.

My point is perhaps pedantic. The pre-council agenda for the competitiveness (internal market, industry and research) council on 29 June looks like a report of a meeting that has already taken place. It states:

"Council reached political agreement on a draft Directive"

and

"Council took note of a Presidency progress report",

yet the meeting is not due to take place for another 10 days. Is the date wrong? I do not know. Perhaps the meeting was on 29 May.

It is obviously the lawyer in you that noticed that. It might be because of the way in which it was drafted, but we can certainly check.

Do you see my point?

Yes.

The matter that I am interested in is the seventh framework programme for research and technological development, which we have mentioned on a number of occasions. There appears to have been a substantive outcome on that.

When we thank the Executive for all the information it has sent, we can ask it to clarify that.

The other one that I want to mention is definitely a post-council report. It is on the agriculture and fisheries council.

What page, Jim?

It is on the last two pages. The report gives a breakdown of the discussion on the future of the European fisheries fund. It states:

"The issue may be raised at June Council, but most likely it will be left to the Finnish Presidency to consider how to unblock this impasse."

That has important implications for many fishing communities and the industry. We will be kept informed during the process, but we should ask for information on any initiatives that our ministers are taking to contribute to—

To unblocking the impasse. Yes. We have got quite a lot of action out of agenda item 4.