Question reference: S3O-00594
- Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for West of Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 5 September 2007
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Current status: Answered by Linda Fabiani on 13 September 2007
Question
To ask the Scottish Executive what meetings it has had with EU ministers and officials since May 2007 and what issues were discussed.
Answer
The ScottishGovernment has had many meetings with the EU since May 2007. Focusing on ministerialmeetings, the First Minister met European Commissioners Borg (Fisheries andMaritime Affairs), Grybauskaite (Budget), Mandelson (Trade) and McCreevy(Internal Market and Services) when visiting Brussels on 11 July. He discusseda range of Scottish interests in relation to each of the Commissionersportfolios.
He also met withCommissioner Piebalgs (Energy) in Edinburgh on 19 Julywhere carbon capture and storage projects, renewable energy targets and otherenergy issues were discussed.
The CabinetSecretary for Education and Lifelong Learning and I met with Commissioner Figel(Education) on 28 June where we discussed higher education issues, the EuropeanInstitute of Technology and the Erasmus programme.
Richard Lochhead,along with the EU Commission, Ministers and representatives from all the other memberstates, attended the Agriculture and Fisheries Council in Luxembourg on 11-12June where the main issues on the agenda were: reform of the fruit andvegetables sector, rules on organic production and labelling, a single CommonMarket Organisation, recovery plans for Baltic cod, for blue fin tuna and forEuropean eel, and the Greenland fisheries partnership.
Finally, this isnot the appropriate forum for me to list each of the many meetings thatScottish Government officials have had with the EU Institutions since May. However,I will say that Scottish Government officials, from our EU Office in Brussels,and from Scotland, frequently attend working group meetings in the Council of the EU as well as management committees chaired by the Commission.
Officials alsoattend meetings in the European Parliament and have discussions with EuropeanCommission officials on issues of importance to Scotland, particularly in relation to fisheries, agriculture, justice,structural funds, energy and environment matters.