European and External Relations Committee, 21 Dec 2004

Meeting date: Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Official Report 107KB pdf

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Sift

Members have a copy of the sift paper. The key point that the paper highlights is the significance of the Council of the European Union's draft operational programme for 2005, which has been submitted by the incoming Luxembourg and United Kingdom presidencies. In effect, that draft operational programme complements the legislative work programme for 2005, which is due to be published on, I think, 11 January. As that material will be of some significance in informing the committee's work pattern in the year ahead, I plan to include it on the agenda of our January away day.

Those draft programmes fit into our general work programme, which will include a trip to Brussels in the spring. During that trip, all members of the committee will meet various Commission representatives so that we can begin to establish a proactive assessment of the emerging agenda both of the Council and of the Commission for the year ahead. Therefore, all that material is pretty fundamental to the issues that we may look at in the period ahead.

The sift document also lists other documents of importance.

As that document will be published on 11 January and our away day will be held on 14 January, it will be useful to receive a copy of that material as soon as possible. That would allow us to read the material in advance.

Will we discuss our away day today?

No. We did not plan to do so.

I have an issue to raise, but I can mention it later.

I am sure that you will find some way of doing so.

Do members want to raise any points about the sift paper?

The initial explanation mentions the important mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy. As the convener will know, I have submitted a suggestion on skills development that ties in with the Lisbon strategy. It would be helpful to have the report of the high-level group that was convened by Wim Kok.

We will ensure that we have available and at our disposal all material that can inform our discussion of our forward work programme.