European and External Relations Committee,
Meeting date: Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Official Report
234KB pdf
Convener's Report
The final agenda item is the convener's report. There are two issues to deal with. First, we have received a letter on the "Second Implementation Report on the 2003-2005 Broad Economic Policy Guidelines" from Tom McCabe, Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform—and for Europe and external relations, to give his full responsibilities. Mr McCabe has written to follow up points that were raised at a previous meeting.
Secondly, the minister has sent a letter of explanation to Alex Neil, who is the convener of the Enterprise and Culture Committee. The letter resulted from the media advert for the first secretary/counsellor position in the People's Republic of China, which seems to be exercising the Enterprise and Culture Committee. Do members have any points to make on those papers?
I am sorry for continually chipping in, but it would be interesting to monitor the outcome of Mr McCabe's encouraging words that are contained in annex A.
I think that there will be a lot of discussion of and follow-up on that issue. I do not think that matters will be straightforward.
Before I close the meeting, I draw members' attention to the fact that we have been joined by Ian Duncan, who is the new parliamentary representative in Brussels. He started work in the Parliament yesterday and has observed most of the meeting. I welcome him to his new post. We look forward to working with him.
The committee will reconvene on 7 June.
Meeting closed at 16:00.