France's European Union Presidency
We have an interesting longer paper on France's presidency of the EU, which does not contain recommendations but is just for information. Do members have any comments on it?
I do not know what a "European private company" is.
It is one that speaks French.
Where is that mentioned?
In paragraph 3 on page 2 of annex A, under the heading "Small Business Act". Can anyone enlighten us? I do not have a clue what a "European private company" is.
That is quite interesting.
Is it a new type of company?
The clerks will enlighten us.
In writing? Okay. Good.
Do you not know the answer, Irene? You know everything about Europe.
I do not know what a "European private company" is.
I have a comment about the social policy section, which includes health. It says:
"A conference on workers' rights will take place 11-12 September 2008 focusing on issues of trans-national mobility and ‘flexicurity'."
I do not know what "flexicurity" means. Given that the conference has already taken place, do we know what its outcome was?
I had also marked that part of the paper. It is a helpful and comprehensive document, but unfortunately—this is an issue that we have discussed before—many of the events have already taken place. Some of the events that are coming up are of significant relevance to work that is being done in the Scottish Parliament. I marked my papers when I read them, which was a few days ago, so I am frantically trying to find the right parts of the document.
The Alzheimer's conference is relevant.
Yes. The paper also mentions the animal health action plan and the idea of patient mobility across borders. Even if the European and External Relations Committee does not tackle such issues, how can we as a Parliament ensure that we have influence over such matters? The directive on cross-border health will
"clarify the right of patients to seek health care in other member states with the costs reimbursed by the patient's national health care provider."
Health is a devolved issue, but are we fully aware of the directive's implications? Have we thought them through? Do we want to have an input to the directive's development?
As Alex Neil mentioned, a major conference is to be held on Alzheimer's disease. I chair the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on Alzheimer's, which is doing groundbreaking work. The Government comes along to our meetings and has an input to them.
The paper deals with a wide range of issues, including animal health, workers' rights, the cross-border health directive and Alzheimer's. How can we get in on some of the work that is being done in those areas? Perhaps we need to discuss how the committee contributes and how we work with the other committees. For example, if the Health and Sport Committee did not want to contribute on the cross-border health directive, could we hold a short, but focused inquiry to take evidence from key people about the directive's implications for the Scottish Parliament?
Those are important points. We have the policy of mainstreaming, and it is right that we try to get the other committees involved in consideration of European issues. The Health and Sport Committee is certainly keeping a watch on the cross-border health directive, although I do not know how much work it has done on it. Irene Oldfather has made an interesting point. Does mainstreaming just mean that we do not get involved in consideration of issues that relate to the work of other committees?
It is a good paper that covers many issues, even if there is an issue about exactly when it was written. Does anyone else have comments on what Irene Oldfather has said?
I agree with Irene Oldfather.
I come back to fisheries—one of my favourite subjects—and an issue that the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee might deal with. I note that the paper says that
"The French are hopeful that the Cod Recovery Plan will be signed off during the 24-25 November 2008 Fisheries Council Meeting".
That is a particularly important topic for Scottish fishermen at the moment. Members will probably have seen stories over the past week about a whole pile of cod being discarded. The fact that cod are returning in big numbers means that fishermen are exceeding their quotas and so are having to dump as much cod as they are allowed to keep in their boats. The Government will have to renegotiate the days-at-sea agreement or something similar so that that valuable stock is not thrown back just because the quotas allow the fishermen to catch only so much cod. One hopes that the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee is considering the situation, which is extremely serious. If the cod recovery plan is to be signed off at the council on 24 and 25 November, there should be some input from Scotland on it.
That raises the question to what extent we need to be more proactive on the issues with which we expect other committees to engage. Perhaps we simply need to be in more regular contact with them. Lucy Scharbert might like to comment; she has probably been involved with the other committees on those issues.
Some of the issues that the committee is raising will be monitored in the "Brussels Bulletin", which is disseminated to subject committees and stakeholders more broadly. Through that, we can certainly follow up the specific issues that committee members have raised and highlight them to the subject committees.
I was for a while the convener of the subject committee that dealt with the economy. A lot of European stuff was relevant to that committee, but the European angle was almost inevitably marginalised by the main committee work and was merely noted at the end of the meeting, if at all.
I agree with Ted Brocklebank and Irene Oldfather. Why not write to the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee and ask whether it is doing any work on the cod recovery plan? If it is not, perhaps we should take up the cudgels and do something about it. Ted will no doubt need to educate the rest of us on exactly what is involved—I do not know much about the plan.
Fishing is a critical industry for Scotland and the decisions that are made in Brussels will be critical for fishing communities, particularly but not exclusively those in the north-east. As Scotland's Parliament, we should take a proactive approach to the plan. If the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee does not have the time or inclination and does not want to take up the cudgels, we should do it.
I used to be a member of the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee and I believe that it will consider the issue—I think consideration of the common fisheries policy is factored into its work programme every year. As important as the matter is, one of the reasons why I am happy to be on this committee is that I will not have to assess the common fisheries policy in so much detail.
On the wider issue, I agree with what Alex Neil said. Although the European Union's work is clearly important to rural affairs and a number of directives came up at every meeting, the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee did not consider the "Brussels Bulletin" in particular detail. Is there a role for us to play in directing subject committees? We obviously cannot instruct them, but perhaps we could tell them that an issue was coming up, ask whether they had considered it and take the matter forward from there.
The terms "cudgels" and "cod recovery" do not go well together.
I highlight the section in the paper on animal health, food safety and plant protection. In the pesticides directive, there is a long list of pesticides, many of which are used in areas that have a maritime climate—as we do—that has a damper atmosphere. The directive is of great concern in the farming community—I have already declared an interest, although I am just a hill farmer—and, if we are going to alert the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee to developments in the cod recovery plan, we should also alert it to the pesticides directive, which may have serious implications for Scottish agriculture, although that committee may be on the job already.
I forgot to mention the Erasmus Mundus programme, on which the French have responsibility for making final decisions. Scottish students have accessed the Erasmus programme widely over a number of years. Decisions could be being taken on that and other matters, such as the cohesion programme and the cross-border health directive.
Perhaps the committee could have a brief private discussion about how it could be more proactive on such matters. It might be possible to have rapporteurships such as we used to have, whereby a member who has an interest in a particular matter would take responsibility for liaising with appropriate people and reporting back to the committee. The European Parliament has appointed a UK rapporteur on the cross-border health directive—I think it is John Bowis—who can keep us right on such things. That would put us in a unique place to be able to find out what is going on, be ahead of the game and make submissions or meet the rapporteur. Perhaps we could invite him to the committee.
There are things that we could do to be a little bit more proactive. Perhaps we should have a short private discussion to consider how we could do that.
I agree. It would be useful if the clerks would prepare a paper for us. The idea of permanent rapporteurs taking responsibility for particular subject areas is good, but the key thing is how we decide what to get involved in, so we need a set of criteria for deciding our priorities for that. Although it would be tempting to get involved in the pesticides directive, it might not be the best use of our time, important though it is.
The first criterion would be to check whether the relevant subject committee was taking up the cudgels on a given issue. If it was, we would not need to do it but, if it was not, we would need to consider whether the issue was important enough for us to take it up and whether we had the time to do so seriously. Then we would need to consider how to take it up.
There are various ways in which we could do it. We would not need an inquiry every time; the rapporteur might simply go to Brussels to investigate, then come back and tell the committee what was happening. They might inform the minister and say that there was not much more that the Parliament needed to do or they might say that the issue was extremely important.
If we had taken that approach in the early stages of the services directive, a rapporteur would probably have said that we needed to consider it because it had huge implications for Scotland. Some of the VAT changes that are mooted—such as the proposal to reduce VAT on catering services and restaurants—are potentially beneficial to Scotland.
There are loads of issues and, although we cannot get involved in them all, there are clearly some on which we need to be more proactive than we are. I am happy to discuss that in public, however: I do not see why we need to do it in private.
I was going to suggest much the same thing. We do not need a long paper, but we need more thought on how we relate to the subject committees on such issues. Mainstreaming is right in principle, but we must make it work as effectively as possible and not use it as an excuse not to get involved with issues.
The clerks will prepare a paper for the next meeting. We can decide at the beginning of that meeting whether we want the discussion to be in private or public. However, that does not mean that we need to delay action on the cod recovery plan. Jamie Hepburn indicated that the Rural Affairs and Environment Committee is taking that on board, but the clerks will check that officially.
Are committee members happy with that?
Members indicated agreement.