European Commission Work Programme 2013
Agenda item 2 is evidence on the European Commission work programme for 2013 from Ian Hudghton MEP. I should say that all our MEPs were invited but, for legitimate reasons, could not all attend, although George Lyon has sent us a written briefing. We hope that, by opening up our committee to MEPs, they will take the opportunity to come along to our meetings.
Ian Hudghton has a brief opening statement.
I will be very brief, in order to leave more time to deal with questions.
As members are aware, the Commission’s work programme contains details of the work that it proposes to undertake over the next calendar year. It is set against the backdrop of the Commission President’s “state of the union”—the European Union—address, which took place in September and in which he said that the direction of the EU is
“towards a democratic federation of nation states, a political dimension to frame the emerging European structures for stronger economic and social integration.”
That statement went down fairly well with the majority of members in the European Parliament, but is not without its controversial aspects in terms of how the European Union is to develop in the coming years.
There is a fair amount in this programme and in the immediate challenges that we all face that has led to significant debate at Europe level about the extent to which what is needed to address the economic challenges is, as some would put it, “more Europe” as opposed to a framework in which member states can—as they do—take a relatively independent approach to their economic and fiscal decisions. The threads that run through the Commission’s work programme are set against that backdrop.
This morning, in the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, there was a vote on the proposal to move towards enhanced co-operation to allow a number of member states that wish to establish a financial transaction tax to do so. Unsurprisingly, it has not been possible so far to get unanimity among member states on giving up one of their key remaining powers, which is the power over taxation. However, there is a move to give the power to impose a European financial transaction tax to member states that want it. That committee approved that idea this morning but—of course—that is only the committee stage; there is still a lot of debate to be had on that and other proposals.
Committee members have a fairly comprehensive run-down of the detail of the Commission’s work programme for 2013; I do not propose to read it out. However, I would welcome questions—to the extent that I can answer them—although I must say that I did not expect to be the only MEP here. If there are questions that could be dealt with by my colleagues, I am sure that they will be happy to do so after this meeting, if I cannot answer or members do not like my opinions and want alternatives.
Thank you very much. Fear not: we do not expect you to be the all-knowing oracle. I know that Europe picks up lots of different strands of interest and responsibility, and that your strands are very much in the rural sector. I am sure that a number of my colleagues will have questions on that.
As an opener, perhaps we can hear your feelings from Brussels about the negotiations on the multi-annual financial framework, and how you see that panning out over the next few weeks. Obviously, there was worry last week when no agreement was reached for countries that are perhaps more fragile. The situation has changed slightly this week; there might be more certainty in that regard. Can you give us your on-site insight into what is happening in that regard?
It is certainly a difficult situation. You are right: it is obviously important that we get clarity about the extent of the global EU budget and the budgets of the individual strands in which we are interested. For fairly obvious reasons, it is not easy to get 27 member states and the European Parliament to agree either on the headline figures or on the more complicated breakdowns.
There have been significant differences among member states. For example, the UK has caused surprise by calling for phasing out or scrapping direct farm payments at various stages in the run-up to where we are now. Member states will get back together on the next plan in—I think—February; I have no doubt that a lot of work will be done between now and then. I think that everyone hopes that a deal can be done so that the details can be developed.
The committee will be aware—I think George Lyon points this out in his brief—that reform of the common agricultural policy is more than a little dependent on financing of initiatives that are contained in it. That is not, of course, the only policy area that is in such a position, but it is a very big policy area for Scotland financially and in terms of its overall importance for the rural economy. Indeed, many significant population centres around Scotland also feel the benefits of a healthy agricultural sector.
There is a huge number of issues and it is difficult for me or anyone else to predict exactly what the outcomes will be. However, my guess is that despite all the difficulties and apparently intractable positions, as is fairly usual in such matters some sort of compromise—or “fudge”, if members prefer—will emerge and we will manage to get on with CAP reform, common fisheries policy reform and the financial aspects of many other key areas that we still need to argue about.
10:00
Good morning and welcome. When you go back, you can tell your colleagues that it was a beautiful sunny morning in Edinburgh.
I have two questions, on which I hope you will be able to shed some light. First, is there the possibility of our having a common immigration policy in Europe? At the moment, we have the farce of people on the borders of France and other parts of Europe trying to enter the United Kingdom. We need a common policy for the whole European Union on that. At what level or stage is that being discussed? Does the European Union have the stomach to deal with the issue?
Secondly, an even more important subject for us here in Scotland is fuel prices. Our fuel prices are higher than they are for most of our European Union counterparts, and most of the price is due to tax. Will there be a European Union directive under which only a certain amount of tax could be levied against citizens in any EU country, so that we have a uniform tax system for fuel and so that people in rural parts do not pay the high prices that they currently pay? We are already disadvantaged in the sense that service providers have long routes to travel, and the fact that we are penalised by additional taxation is unhelpful.
Both those issues are highly contentious in some respects.
I will take the second issue first. Hanzala Malik is right to say that a substantial proportion of what we pay on road-vehicle fuel goes in tax. As I briefly indicated in my introduction, that is an area of member-state competence. For understandable reasons, most member states wish to retain power over setting taxation rates, which is also my view. I am not particularly persuaded by the idea that the European Union should have taxation powers either to establish new taxes or to direct member states’ taxation levels. At member-state level, local flexibility is often required in order to use taxation as an instrument not just to raise money but to stimulate economic activity. Clearly, the fuel-tax situation does not help to stimulate economic activity. That is particularly badly felt in Scotland, where fuel tax is—at least in the member-state sense—a domestic political issue.
I see no indication that the Commission is thinking bravely enough to try to intervene in the matter and I think that the majority of member states would not be particularly enthused by the idea of being told what to do. That said, individual schemes are already in existence that allow member states to vary tax in, for example, very rural areas and islands. It is being tried, or has been tried, in various parts of the EU.
On a common immigration policy, a lot of discussion is going on about that among member states that have immigration hotspots. For example, in the countries around the Mediterranean, people who are in fairly desperate circumstances have been trying to escape from various countries and have been crossing difficult waters by boat to get into the European Union. Many tragic individual circumstances arise from such things.
For the longer term, a lot of work is going on to try to address some of the problems that people feel they need to escape from, but Hanzala Malik is right that the more general issue of immigration highlights the need for member states to discuss how they can at least take a co-ordinated approach. However, again, there are some fairly strong views among member states about their right to have the final say on immigration from outwith the European Union.
I appreciate that there will be such sentiments in some states, but the issue that concerns us in the United Kingdom in the first instance is immigration within Europe. There are migrants already in Europe who are trying to enter the United Kingdom, and our European allies are not supporting us in the fight. It makes a mockery of the whole system that European state colleagues are not supporting adherence to the laws. We should either have one policy or they should support us with what we have. We cannot have the status quo, which is very unsatisfactory.
The situation is certainly a little disjointed, but some member states have been resistant to allowing the supposed full right of free movement to which we are all entitled, as European Union citizens. Existing member states made specific allowance for a phased approach to opening fully the rights to, for example, travel and seek work of citizens of new countries that have, under enlargement, come in relatively recently. That was agreed among member states. Hanzala Malik is right. That and other things have caused a lack of clarity on whether the full freedoms that are supposedly conferred on us as European citizens have been conferred. That is not the only issue, but it is gradually being addressed, and the assorted delays and opt-outs are gradually disappearing. I think that we will get there not as quickly as you or I would like, but gradually.
When Dr John Reid was Home Secretary and under Theresa May as Home Secretary now, a continuation of restraint on Bulgaria and Romania on being fully fledged members of the European Union in respect of freedom of movement of their citizens has been proposed. What is your view of that? Is it time that we moved away from the “rich men’s club” concept? Should there be totally free movement throughout the whole EU along the lines that my colleague Hanzala Malik has clearly stated? He is absolutely right that we have to move away from the scenario that was mentioned. What is the sense among other member states across Europe? Is their approach similar?
My sense is that there are similar approaches, reservations or whatever in some countries, but I think that a majority want to be able to deliver what the small print says—which is that European citizens shall have the right to free movement to seek work and so on. Anything that prevents that right from being applied genuinely equally is not in the spirit of what every member country of the European Union has signed up to. That said, there have perhaps—let us put it no more strongly than that—been understandable reasons why individual member states want to buy a little time to plan for addressing expected or potential practical issues arising from mass free movement, although I do not think that that fear has shown itself to be particularly valid in many circumstances. Member states have expressed reservations, but we should be nearing the point at which there is genuinely the right of free movement.
We should bear it in mind that movement goes in both directions; a considerable number of people from Scotland and the rest of the UK have taken up, or have ambitions to take up, that right to travel, work or study. We should think of the issue not only as being about the alleged problems that might be caused by people choosing to come here, but from the point of view of people who are here and genuinely want to go elsewhere. It is a two-way thing.
My experience, from travelling around Scotland and visiting business and so on, is that to a large extent people who have come here from other parts of the European Union are valued highly in workplaces. I have been to some extremely rural workplaces and to island workplaces and those businesses have told me that they could not operate were it not for their core staff from other parts of the European Union. Such staff make a contribution in areas that employers perceive as being difficult from the point of view of finding and retaining staff. There is a benefit there that we need to weigh up when we are dealing with these matters.
I do not know what the most up-to-date figures are, but in 2008, 30,000 British people had formed companies in countries such as Bulgaria. All of them make use of the facilities and public services in those countries. You are absolutely right to highlight the fact that it is a two-way process, and I am pleased to hear that your view about that is similar to mine. Thank you.
I am interested in the digital economy, and in broadband, mobile and broadcasting services and so on. Before the meeting, the committee heard from Graham Blythe of the European Commission in Scotland about the single market, which has now been in place for 20 years, and I wonder whether any work is being done on assisting consumers throughout the European Union to purchase digital services from wherever in the EU they choose?
I will give you a couple of examples of why I think that that is an issue. If you are in Scotland and you want to buy broadband services, you are pretty much restricted to local suppliers in the UK. If you want to buy media, television and broadcasting services, the same applies. You cannot pick and choose services and suppliers from neighbouring European Union states. I cannot watch RTÉ in Scotland, but in Ireland I can watch the BBC. If I drive from Scotland to Donegal, the tariff rates immediately change and I pay higher rates.
I see that in the broadband work programme that is coming up there is some work on infrastructure and capital investment. Is anyone considering attempting to harmonise customer choice throughout the European Union in order to provide a commonality of service and therefore a commonality of pricing structure for those important services in the future?
You are right—those are important services in the present, never mind in the future. There are some parts of Scotland where there is no choice of broadband—or even no broadband unless it is satellite operated. I know that assorted battles are going on in some parts of Scotland among consumers who wish to subscribe through BT exchanges and who cannot, for practical or investment reasons. That is an extremely complex issue and a wee European directive slipped into next year’s programme certainly could not sort out all that needs to be sorted out, although there is a lot of discussion about digital networking and so on.
As I understand it, some of the television and broadcasting issues that you referred to are partly to do with licensing arrangements, because although the satellite signal for some channels is receivable here or in Brussels, where I watch telly sometimes, it is not legally permissible to tune into that signal because company A does not have a licence to broadcast in that country. There are some issues in that area that could be examined at the European level.
10:15
Every time it is asked whether the European Union should be able to do something new, the question arises to what extent we think that it is a good idea for something to be decided on in Brussels, as opposed to a local decision being made about the nature, control and licensing of the issue, whether it is broadcasting, broadband, mobile networks and so on. There are issues to do with the extent to which the EU should have powers, but I think that electronic communication is an area in which the EU is well placed to deal with what are, to an increasing extent, cross-border issues. Those of us who travel a bit know perfectly well that a range of issues, such as mobile phone data roaming, have been tackled—to some extent, at least—by the EU, with a view to making it possible for consumers to get a better deal, if not always a better technical service, which is another matter altogether.
I will stop rambling and simply say that that is a good set of issues, of which I will take careful note. If there are any particular issues that relate to the proposals that are in the pipeline, I will get back to the committee. Otherwise, I note that those areas are well worth pursuing so that, as consumers, we can have more choice in television or broadband.
I certainly appreciate that, and I would be much obliged to Mr Hudghton if those issues could be raised in whatever forum is appropriate. We are talking about consumer choice, which the single market is meant to help to deliver. In my view, that does not really apply in the case of broadband and media services. Consumer choice is still pretty much restricted to local member state level. As with fuel, perhaps it is a competence issue. Such services are ripe for being opened up to consumer choice throughout Europe, and I hope that there will be discussion on progress towards that in the future.
I echo what Willie Coffey has just said about broadband. There are many areas in the Highlands and Islands that suffer great inequality because they do not receive broadband. Even when contracts have been put in place, sometimes the service does not work when it is raining. All sorts of things go wrong. I would be grateful for anything that you can do on that front. I gather that the EU gives €28 billion to the member states to deal with broadband, and it might be worth holding an inquiry to find out how that is working, especially in the more peripheral areas.
I have a second question, if that is all right, which is on the common agricultural policy. Scotland is highly dependent on the CAP, about which there is great uncertainty. I am getting correspondence from constituents and advisory bodies such as the Scottish Agricultural College—they simply do not know what will happen to people who benefit from Scotland rural development programme schemes that are due to run out. If there is to be delay and we still do not know what the budget figure will be, how will they know what the priorities are for getting new schemes going?
In the meantime, is there any hope that the present schemes can be kept going for an extra period to ensure that farmers do not lose substantial amounts of income? Although the budget has not yet been declared, I presume that it will allow for those schemes and that the money for them will be there. Do you see what I mean? If the schemes are not in place, the money will simply not be used and, because of the lack of planning, the people who should be getting it will be suffering.
Unfortunately our agriculture experts on the committee are not with me today. As I said at the outset, we are all feeling a bit frustrated about the uncertainty over the budget. In fact, the last time I looked, I noticed that we do not even have a finally agreed budget for next year, never mind for the multi-annual financial framework. I think—and hope—that the MAFF budget will be fixed and agreed well before the detail of common agricultural policy reform is finally agreed. At the moment, it is at a similar stage to CFP reform, by which I mean there has been no committee vote on the detail in the European Parliament. After we have the committee vote, there has to be a plenary vote, and the resulting position has to go to the member states to see how much of it can be agreed. Irrespective of budget issues, we have some months to go with regard to CAP and CFP reform before we know what the broad framework will be.
I of course understand and accept that CAP funding is crucial to Scotland. Although there are some budgeting issues to be dealt with at the European level and certain technical decisions to be made about the new CAP, one might contend that in a number of respects Scotland is receiving less than our fair share—or at least our equitable share—of CAP funding. For example, the average payment in Scotland is €130 per hectare, whereas it is €229 in the UK and €268 across the EU. As a result, we need to be alive to certain internal issues as well as looking at the big European picture, however it might fall.
I think that it is unlikely but, if by any chance we end up not agreeing an EU budget, the existing budget would simply roll over in what I believe are called provisional twelfths until the budget is agreed and in place. If there were no agreement, the budget period would not simply end, with nothing after it; at worst, the financial situation that I have just outlined would come to pass. As I said, however, my guess—it cannot be a prediction—is that a deal will somehow be found, even though that might look extremely difficult just now.
Do I have time to ask a final question, convener?
Yes.
With regard to the CFP, a recent report suggested that 83 per cent of the serious infringements of fishery rules reported by EU member states were carried out by four member states, three of which were Spain, Italy and Portugal. I cannot remember which the fourth one was, but it certainly was not the UK. The Scottish fleet has done an enormous amount on conservation measures and has tried to stay in line with the rules for the cod recovery plan and everything else, but the fact that the fines for that enormous number of infringements seem to be negligible and that nothing that is being done has any teeth or harms the people who have made the infringements is making our fishermen say, “Why are we bothering?” When are you—I am sorry; I mean the commissioners—going to tighten up on the infringements made by the four nations who are responsible for 83 per cent of them?
On the face of it, I could be surprised that you are calling for more centralisation of these matters when the talk is of decentralisation in the new common fisheries policy. I do not mean to be impertinent in saying that; it is just an observation.
There is a perceived issue about the extent to which there is standardisation of penalty in such matters. It is difficult to say that, just because there are a great number of infringements, there should be high penalties. As with any other infringement of any other regulation, the punishment should fit the nature of the infringement. This country will be aware that, on the odd occasion when we have found infringements, some pretty hefty penalties have been imposed—and quite rightly. That is one of the many, many frustrations with the common fisheries policy.
The perception—which I think is correct—is that we, in Scotland, are making massive efforts to improve the situation and are sometimes having to argue against the restrictions or the centralised nature of common fisheries policy regulation in order to have, for example, the catch composition scheme, the North Sea land-all scheme and the resulting reduction in discards, which is very worth while. Arguing on the other side of the argument in order to be able to offer relatively minor encouragements to vessels to come into that was not an easy battle to win at either Commission or EU level under the current common fisheries policy. On the one hand, the CFP is terribly restrictive, centralised and regulated, but you are right that, on the other hand, there is no accompanying strict, tight and standardised method of dealing with infringement when it occurs.
If I may, I will make a brief, general comment about the form of the common fisheries policy. Right now, the timetable is slipping significantly. As your bulletin says, we had planned to have a committee vote this week, but that has slipped to 18 December and there are some who are doubtful that we will even manage to have the vote on that date. If it does take place on that date, the plenary vote will be in February or March. The Parliament’s position will then have to be put against the Council’s position to see where there are areas of agreement or otherwise.
There are some months still to go in that process but we have at least, in the limited amount of agreement that we have been able to reach among representatives of the political groupings in the European Parliament, a greater recognition, in some ways, of the need for decentralisation. That is important in the context of your question, because if we have true decentralised decision making and member states or the fishing nations being empowered to work together in logical sea areas, knowing that they will benefit in the long term from any management decisions or conservation measures that must be put in place, there is a greater likelihood that we will have a climate in which infringements are reduced because people will want to comply for their own benefit. For the first time, there will also be a greater likelihood that a central objective of the CFP or any fisheries management policy might be realised, which is that fish stocks might be conserved while preserving the economic and social benefits to communities and the healthy food chain for consumers.
A host of exceedingly complicated things are happening, but a little glimmer now and again makes me hope that we might get as much true reform as I would like to see. That would partly encompass the infringement and control issues that you raise in your question.
Can I just ask—
Quickly, because we are running out of time and I want to bring in other members.
10:30
What will happen if the committee does not vote?
If our committee does not vote in December the vote will have to be in January, February or whenever and another month would be added to the timetable. We are already significantly behind the original timetable, as we should ideally have been done and dusted by the end of this year. The end of next year would be the last possible deadline to allow a smooth transition. Most people are trying to get to a position where a new CFP and CAP could be agreed during the Irish presidency in the first six months of next year. Boy, will they have their hands full. They are keen for that to happen, too.
The CFP, in particular, has to date been unsatisfactory, highly centralised and unsuccessful partly because it is a highly controversial policy that has tried to deal centrally and in a standardised fashion with something that is extremely varied among sea areas. If we now have a genuine move towards more local decision making, it would be a massive step. However, there is still some significant resistance to that principle, not least from the European Commission’s lawyers, but also from some member states. How far we can go remains to be seen.
I hope that we will have the vote on 18 December, which will mean a plenary vote in March. Then we will need to see just how quickly the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers can agree to a compromise.
A lot of the issues have been covered by your response to Jamie McGrigor. Briefly, what are the major faultlines in the discussions about reform of the CAP? Granted, you are not a CAP expert, unlike other MEPs who are not here.
The CAP has to cover a massive diversity of food production systems and a number of different key areas of local—in a European sense—priority. One of the problems is trying to get a common policy that can sensibly cover a multitude of things.
The main issue will be the level of direct payments and it comes back to the amount available in the budget for those payments. Once we have the MAFF—the future years budget—we will get down to knowing how much will be available for agriculture. There is still a bit of debate about to what extent direct payments should continue and under what conditions, and to what extent money should be moved from direct payments for active farming to general environment schemes that are not necessarily specifically related to farm production but—for lots of good reasons—concern environmental protection.
For us, those are the key parts. A substantial amount—80-something per cent—of Scotland’s agricultural land is less-favoured area, which means that we must have a good deal to protect and develop activity here under a new CAP. That issue is specific to Scotland. The less-favoured areas are one of Scotland’s environmental strengths, because they are by and large permanent grazing or rough grazing, so they are a natural food supply for livestock, as opposed to factory farming. We should—and could, with the right framework—capitalise on that natural fact, which is well-enough supported, to promote our healthy and naturally produced foodstuffs.
I have two quick questions. The first is to do with the MAFF negotiations. Previously, we had the use of the veto by the UK Government, and recently we had the vote at Westminster about the budget proposals. We took some evidence last week from Dr Fabian Zuleeg, who said that there is genuinely talk about the possibility of the UK leaving the EU. What impact, if any, is that having on the UK negotiating position?
My second question is about cigarette smuggling. I believe that the Commission’s proposal is about legitimate cigarettes and not the counterfeit variety. Last week, the Scottish Government announced the ambition for Scotland to be a smoking-free country, given our high rate of smoking-related deaths. How do you see the tackling of cigarette smuggling being taken forward?
Two quick questions, did you say? [Laughter.]
On the budget and the negotiations, David Cameron wanted to be portrayed here as having used his veto, but what he actually did was to say, “If you, my European partners, go in a certain direction, I will use the veto.” He did not actually get to the stage of using the veto. That was a significant tactical error in the negotiations, because the result was that the other 26 member states went on with the discussion and David Cameron, who was there on our behalf, was left out.
There is a role for a veto. It is important that countries can have a veto over areas in which unanimity is required, but it is far better to be in the room until a final proposal comes out and to decide at that time whether it is a vetoable proposal, rather than to say, “I don’t want to play,” in which case the rest will say, “We need to do something about various aspects of economic matters. We’re not going to sit and do nothing just because you say you’re going to use a veto on something we haven’t even drafted yet.” That is where we were at the veto-using stage.
It is clear that national priorities need to be defended by national Governments—no one would argue with that principle—but it is a question of attitude. Our national priorities should be defended and promoted in a method of constructive engagement that recognises that there has to be a certain amount of give and take, and ultimately, if a veto is available and it has to be used, that is fine. However, the attitude that is taken when we go into negotiations has a lot to do with how we expect to achieve objectives within the negotiations.
Successive UK Governments—I do not single out one in particular—have wanted to portray themselves as being out to sort out people who are allegedly thinking up mischievous things to annoy us, rather than constructively engaging in a process in which we should be partners.
On smoking and cigarettes, ironically, part of the problem and one of the drivers for the smuggling of cigarettes is the taxation on cigarettes. Sometimes, the difference in taxation between EU member states leads to a bit of trade, if you like, across borders—not illegal trade, but mass purchase. It also leads to theft of cigarettes and the smuggling thereof, and some smuggling of cigarettes into the EU from outside. That is included in the Commission’s proposals as something that needs to be tackled. It reminds me of another fundamental discussion that we have had—not recently, but certainly in my time as an MEP—which is about whether the EU should seek to have the power to ban smoking across the European Union, as opposed to leaving that as a member state competence. That is still a live issue, although such matters obviously remain a member state competence at the moment. It is easy to see the success that some member states and devolved entities have had in tackling the problem, so it is tempting to want to hurry things up by enabling European action to be taken.
Some years ago, I would have said that we should not be legislating at European level on those sorts of member state issues, but I have softened in my attitude a bit. Given the massive public health consequences and the potential public finance cost savings, I am now not so sure whether the member states should not discuss at least co-ordinating, if not empowering EU action, on that sort of thing.
We have completely run out of time, although we could probably explore a number of questions further. I hope that the next time that we have an MEP panel, we will actually have a panel and that Ian Hudghton will not need to hold the fort all on his own.
I thank you for your evidence and your candid answers to some quite difficult questions. We look forward to working with you again.
Agenda item 3 is further consideration of the European Commission work programme. We also explored it in our informal session before the meeting, so members should now be quite well informed about it. Ian Duncan will give us a brief summary of the clerk’s paper 1, and we can then ask questions.
Ian Duncan (Clerk and European Officer)
I have looked at the European Commission’s work programme proposals and filleted out all those that are of devolved competence. They are listed in the annex to the paper, where they are broken down by relevant Scottish Parliament committee. If members agree, the report will be forwarded to the subject committees, which will discuss the issues and agree their actions, which they will then report back to this committee. At that point, this committee will look at each of the responses and determine its own priorities in the work programme, some of which may be referrals from the subject committees if the subject committees do not have the time to take them forward.
I will not go into great detail on the contents of the work programme, but it is perhaps worth noting a couple of things. Again, there are quite a lot of energy and climate change issues, which is perhaps not unexpected. There is a controversial proposal for a European public prosecutor, which might be a concern for the Justice Committee—I look towards Roderick Campbell on that one. In the maritime area, the “blue belt” for maritime transport may be of interest. Another issue that might come up is the free movement of controlled professions, which relates to the restrictions that member states impose on lawyers and doctors.
It is also worth bearing in mind that a number of issues will roll forward from the previous year, some of which we have heard about today. Those on-going issues include: the common fisheries policy; the common agricultural policy; horizon 2020, which is the economic development strategy; and the macro negotiations on the budget.
I am happy to take any questions on the paper.
I notice that none of the proposals will be referred to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Audit Committee. How does the European Union’s system of accountability and scrutiny work? Is there any merit in comparing what we do with what happens in Europe? How is value for money assessed across the European Union? Does Europe have a public audit committee as well? Would it be of interest to us to find out more about scrutinising the work of the European Union in terms of value for money?
You have picked probably the most controversial area for the European Union. For various reasons, the private contractor that audits the books each year has continually been unable to sign off on the audit. I think that the European Union would like to be better at that, but at the moment it is a fuzzy area that has not been taken forward in the way that would happen here. If things were done in the same way as happens here, the EU might look very different.
There probably are lessons that would provide a read-across, but at the moment it is a controversial area. However, I do not mean to sound like something bad is happening; primarily, the issue is a combination of the complexity arising from differences among member states and a lack of appetite to explore too far into the issue rather than anything else.
10:45
There must at least be systems of scrutiny, accountability and so on. I know that I am relatively new to the committee, but I just wonder whether we ever get sight of the work that goes on in the European Union on scrutiny, accountability and value for the public pound or euro. At some stage in the future, I would be interested in looking at how the European Union assesses its own performance.
There are two parts to consider. First, each of the directorates-general tries to assess what added value its work delivers. However, that is not so much a financial assessment as an output or outcome assessment. All the directorates-general do that as part of their requirements. Secondly, the actual finances are assessed by external auditors, who look at the whole sweep of costs and spend.
We could look at the issue in the future. Perhaps it might be useful to provide a short note on how it works, just as a starter for 10. If the committee has more ambitions to look at the issue in more detail, a note can certainly be arranged.
That would be helpful.
To be helpful to Willie Coffey, I suggest that it might be worth exploring which MEPs from the UK are members of the sorts of committees that Willie Coffey is talking about. We could perhaps engage with those MEPs and discuss and share information with them in order to tease out some of the questions and see what would be appropriate for us to dig into further. That is just a thought.
I can put together a note for the committee and we can look at that in the future.
Like my colleague Willie Coffey, I immediately went to the other committee of which I am a member, which for me is the Education and Culture Committee. The note refers to the internationalisation of higher education, but it seems to be talking about that in a global context. Does that mean internationalisation outside of Europe or internationalisation within Europe, or both?
It is probably a bit of both. There is an attempt to benchmark the European Union’s higher education system against global competitors to ensure that what is being offered is attractive and is drawing in students at the right level. The proposal is non-legislative because education is broadly a reserved competence of the member states, but the ambition is to encourage member states across the EU to institute reforms that make their higher education offerings more attractive.
I do not want to step on the toes of my colleague Roderick Campbell, but I have a keen interest in the special safeguards in criminal procedures for suspected or accused persons who are vulnerable. Given that the Scottish Government is bringing forward a victims and witnesses bill, the proposed directive may have an impact, although I believe that the proposal has been delayed on a number of occasions now. Can you give us more details on that?
The European proposal should have been introduced earlier this year, but that did not happen because, I think, the issue is rather complicated. The UK and Scotland are broadly in the vanguard on the issue as they have already taken things forward; elsewhere, safeguards for vulnerable suspected or accused persons are considerably less advanced.
It is likely that the Commission will launch a draft directive in February or March of next year—although I think that I said something similar last year and I was wrong then, so it is quite possible that I could be wrong again. I have not read the Scottish Government’s proposals, but I think that they may go beyond what will be achieved at the European level, although I am not able to confirm that yet.
The victims and witnesses bill is due to come to the Justice Committee fairly early in the new year. I think that Ian Duncan is right that the bill is likely to go beyond what will be required at European level.
Thank you. If there are no more questions on this topic, are members happy to make sure that all subject committees get a copy of the report?
Members indicated agreement.