European Committee,

Meeting date: Tuesday, May 30, 2000

Official Report 193KB pdf

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Convener's Report

The next item on the agenda is the convener's report. There are three short items.

First, I ask committee members to note a proposed meeting with His Excellency Daniel Bernard, the French ambassador to the United Kingdom. We are attempting to secure a slot on the afternoon of 28 June. The ambassador has kindly agreed to meet members of the committee. However, the timing does not coincide with a committee meeting and we must try to arrange for members to meet him during a plenary meeting of the Parliament. If members can try to keep some time free, the clerk will return with the arrangements as soon as we have more details.

Secondly, I ask members to note that there will be a meeting with a delegation from the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries in the evening of 20 June. Further details will be circulated when they are available.

Thirdly, I ask members to agree to the publication of the committee's report on revised working procedures, which we discussed at the previous meeting. Is the committee agreed?

Convener, I do not have any objection to it being published, but neither Ben Wallace nor I were present during the meeting when it was discussed. I would like to see it before it is made public. No minutes have been made available of that meeting.

We will circulate the report for comments and at the next meeting we can agree whether we want to publish it. Okay?

As a result of the discussion that we had at the previous meeting, the report may have been amended. Although we agreed the report in principle, there may have been room for other points that members contributed.

Yes. Several points arose from the discussion, not only on revised working procedures but on the focus of the committee's work. Although not all members were here, those points may lead to a substantial rethink of the way in which we are spending our time. We will have to return to that, as some very detailed suggestions were made.

I am not expressing disagreement, convener, but I would like to see the report before it is published.

We will circulate the report and consider whether there should be another discussion before its publication.

Finally, I ask members to note that the next meeting will be on 13 June at 2 o'clock in Edinburgh.

On a point of order. The initial remit of the European Committee, which is still agreed, is the scrutiny and sifting of European documents. I am aware that that might have been suspended while we undertook our other tasks, but have there been no such documents for our scrutiny? I am concerned that some might have been received without our knowledge.

I can confirm that we have not ceased scrutiny of European documents. We have indicated to the convener that the ones that we have received are for no further action and have no points for consideration.

While we have been dealing with our inquiries, we have not brought those documents to the committee, but we are continuing to look through every document to see whether, in our opinion, anything should be brought to the attention of the committee. We would notify the committee if that were the case.

The documents will be listed when we return to our normal business routine.

Okay. Thank you.

Meeting closed at 15:36.