European and External Relations Committee, 25 Oct 2005

Meeting date: Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Official Report 160KB pdf

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Sift

We move on to the regular sift of European documents and draft legislation. Paper EU/S2/05/15/3 flags up the following items as being especially important to other committees. There is a slight variation in how the papers are now presented that makes it easier to see the items at a glance.

First, there is a series of documents from the Commission that outline a policy framework on a more integrated approach for industrial policy across the EU. That obviously ties in with the Lisbon strategy, so it will be of interest to the Enterprise and Culture Committee.

Margaret Ewing has already referred to the paper about certain access restrictions in the common fisheries policy in relation to the Shetland and plaice boxes. Again, that will be of interest to the Environment and Rural Development Committee and we have agreed that a letter will be sent to Ross Finnie.

There is a paper from the Commission that will be of interest to this committee and to the Enterprise and Culture Committee on the appropriateness of establishing Europe-wide rules for a more detailed level in the NUTS classification. That is a very unfortunate acronym. Does anyone remember what it stands for?

Nomenclature of statistical territorial units. I only know it because I am reading it.

Well done, Mr Wallace. Do members agree with the recommendations that are set out in the sift paper?

Members indicated agreement.

Convener, we always just nod the sift through and I am conscious that quite a lot of work must go into preparing it. It is passed on to the committees but is it on the website for anyone else to see? It is a very useful document that could be helpful to all sorts of people who want to know what is on its way through the European Union. It is worth flagging that up and telling interest groups, businesses and anyone else that this is a very good way of seeing what is in the pipeline.

It is a public document.

So it is not just for us.

No. It is on the website for everyone to see.

We could draw attention to it on the web page.

That might be worth doing because I know that you people do a lot of work to prepare the sift and we just nod it through saying, "Oh yes, that's wonderful," because we have read it, but it is important that other people are aware of it too.

Yes. We will do that.