European and External Relations Committee, 24 Jun 2003

Meeting date: Tuesday, June 24, 2003

Official Report 206KB pdf

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Sift

The final agenda item is the sift of draft EC/EU legislation, which is a key duty of the committee. Members should have received the most recent sift document. If members are happy with the system, the clerks will continue to highlight any items of interest to members or committees. As ever, legislation will be automatically forwarded to the relevant subject committees.

I noticed that the convention preamble and the draft constitution are to be circulated to several committees. I have a copy of those documents, but I am aware of Gordon Jackson's point that some members of this committee might not have a copy of those documents, which are crucial to the committee's work programme. Some of the documents that are mentioned in the sift document might be relevant to this committee. Perhaps we could arrange for committee members to have copies of those documents.

That would be helpful.

It might help committee members and all other members of the Parliament to note that they will receive shortly in their mail trays a document that was produced by the European Parliament and which contains the latest version of the constitutional treaty and appropriate briefing.

Will that be the whole thing?

It will be the whole shooting match and will be given to all members.

Please can I opt out of that?

I remind John Home Robertson that we are members of the European and External Relations Committee. That will give members some reading for the recess; I know that they are dying for something to read. They can let their novels gather more dust and take the constitutional treaty to the beach—it will impress all the holidaymakers.

As John Home Robertson suggested I would be, I am rather overwhelmed by the amount of documentation. However, one document that is not listed in the sift document is the minority report from the convention. Can that be obtained? It must be relevant to the European and External Relations Committee and others and I do not understand why it is not listed.

As far as I am aware, the minority report is not a report of the convention. However, I am happy to try to track down a copy of the document and provide it to Mr Gallie, any committee member or any member of the Parliament who wants it. As the convener's covering letter says, clerks are happy to provide copies of documents and briefing material that catch members' eyes.

I take it that the committee agrees to note the sift document en masse.

I draw the committee's attention to an issue that the clerks highlighted—the draft directive on hallmarking, which could have implications for the jewellery industry in Scotland. I task the clerk with monitoring that and producing a small briefing paper for us to consider.

I thank members for their patience. Much of today's agenda was influenced by the work of the European and External Relations Committee in the previous session. After the recess, we will have the opportunity to move on and discuss our inquiries and new issues. Please make every effort to attend the away day and the trip to Brussels. Once the dates are arranged, they will be communicated to members. I thank members for their attendance and look forward to seeing them at the committee's next meeting, which will be at 2 o'clock on Tuesday 9 September in committee room 1. Hard-working recesses to you all.

Meeting closed at 15:30.