European and External Relations Committee, 25 Apr 2006

Meeting date: Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Official Report 178KB pdf

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European Commission Work Programme 2006

The next item is our regular consideration of a paper that tracks the areas of interest that the committee has identified in the European Commission's work programme for 2006.

The debate that we had in the Parliament last week on the Commission's work programme was really good; members' speeches were super. Sadly, Phil Gallie missed it—I do not know how.

With deep regret. The clerks and the committee agreed to change the date and timing of the debate—

I have to say that, having heard Jamie McGrigor speak in your place, we are delighted that you are the committee member. I never thought that I would see the day when Irene Oldfather and I agreed that you were the best thing since sliced bread, Phil.

You worry me.

I would like to thank the clerks—in the office here and in Brussels—for the work that they have done in putting together the work programme tracker paper, EU/S2/06/6/2. Seeing the programme in this constantly updated format is useful and gives us a much better idea of how things are progressing.

On the globalisation adjustment fund, the paper says:

"No activity to report following launch of fund in March 2006."

However, last week, the issue was discussed in the European Parliament and I gather that the commissioners made a statement that was well received. The main query has been about the amount of money that has been awarded to the fund. Also, the Committee of the Regions has decided to respond to the Commission's paper on the matter. I have been appointed rapporteur on that. There has been some activity over the past 10 days and I can assure you that I will represent Scotland's views in that regard.

Good, thank you. The joy of this paper coming up at each of our meetings is that such developments can be reflected the next time we see the paper.

There have been developments in relation to the services directive, which members can read about. There is an accompanying note on the recent developments on the EU financial perspectives for 2007 to 2013, which is an issue that we have been following.

Are there any further comments under this agenda item?

Annex B of the paper deals with the EU budget. There has been speculation in the press that the budget, which we believed to have been agreed at the time of the ending of the United Kingdom presidency, has been changed. Annex B talks about

"an extra €4bn for the seven-year EU financing package".

I understand that an extra £2 billion from the UK is going towards that. I do not quite understand the position or why there has been a sudden change to the figure that was announced at the end of the UK presidency.

We can bring information on that to the next meeting.