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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 519-iii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE EUROPEAN SCRUTINY COMMITTEE
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION'S ANNUAL POLICY STRATEGY FOR 2008
Thursday 12 July 2007 COMMISSIONER MARGOT WALLSTRÖM, MR CHRISTIAN LEFFLER and MR TOMAS NIKLASSON Evidence heard in Public Questions 95 - 111
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the European Scrutiny Committee on Thursday 12 July 2007 Members present Michael Connarty, in the Chair Mr David S Borrow Mr William Cash Mr James Clappison Jim Dobbin Kelvin Hopkins ________________ Witnesses: Commissioner Margot Wallström, Vice President, Mr Christian Leffler, Chef de Cabinet, and Mr Tomas Niklasson, Secretariat, the European Commission, gave evidence. Q95 Chairman: Vice President Wallström, thank you very much for coming back again, having rearranged your diary. We are very pleased you could do that. As I have said, we have two ongoing inquiries. One is the Annual Policy Strategy document which you have taken responsibility for as the Minister responsible for communicating with parliaments, and the second one is into the Council conclusions and the purpose and structure of those. I have said to you privately that we would also like to ask you a couple of questions at the end about your statement yesterday to the European Parliament which is of interest to us generally since we have been following the process of the Council and the proposed IGC. Could I first ask you to introduce your colleagues before we start our questions? Commissioner Wallström: Thank you very much, Chairman and honourable Members, for this opportunity to come back here and answer any questions you might have. I would be happy if I could just give a short introduction as well to the APS. It will only take a few minutes. With me I have Christian Leffler, who is my Head of Cabinet, and Tomas Niklasson, who is working for the Secretariat generally on these issues. Q96 Chairman: Can I start off the first session on the Annual Policy Strategy for 2008 put out by the Commission? It says in the Annual Policy Strategy document that the Commission looks forward to a "constructive dialogue" and exchange of views with the European Parliament and the Council about where the priorities should lie in 2008. Can you explain exactly what is meant by this constructive dialogue with other EU institutions and what have been the results so far? Commissioner Wallström: Thank you very much. First of all can I say that the Barroso Commission has made it one of its priorities to be involved in a constant dialogue with national parliaments and we have had several hundreds of visits now by Commissioners to national parliaments all over the European Union. The other day we received the hundredth opinion from national parliaments on different proposals from the Commission. We have also been involved in the consultation on the Annual Policy Strategy and I am very pleased to see the strong interest by the British Parliament in our Annual Policy Strategy. I also gave evidence to the House of Lords EU Committee on 3 May and have since received their first report on the APS. This is really, you could say, a test for consulting more thoroughly on the Annual Policy Strategy. We are, of course, trying to improve this procedure constantly and this is a way to inform everyone at an early stage what our overall political priorities are for 2008 and, of course, we welcome any input into this strategy. We have also had, should I say, a rather detailed discussion with the different committees in the European Parliament. We would like to see this becoming more political, not so much into the detail of every committee's work but rather more on the overall policy strategy, but this, I am sure, can be improved and we welcome any input. So far we have also listened especially to what the European Parliament says and we have adopted their views. For example, we have introduced different proposals on energy policy which they underlined and which was clearly their wish, and we have also done it on a number of other policy issues. Would you allow me to give you a brief background and maybe put the Annual Policy Strategy in the right context? Q97 Chairman: If you wish. Commissioner Wallström: I would like to say something on the policy focus and also the impact on financial resources. As you have seen, the document outlines the policy priorities, it defines the communication priorities for the first time and it underlines our commitment to better regulation. It is the first element in the preparation for our work programme. I have also presented the APS to the Foresight meeting in Berlin. We have received already a number of written contributions or resolutions from national parliaments and in some parliaments they arranged an open plenary debate where we had a chance to explain the Annual Policy Strategy and invite discussion. This will be reflected in the next stage of this procedure which is our legislative and work programme for next year, so you can say that it is an open consultation process involving both national parliaments and the European Parliament. The strategic objectives defined by the Barroso Commission at the beginning of our mandate remain valid - prosperity, solidarity, security and a strong and open Europe in the world - and summarise the core ambitions of this Commission. A number of highly important issues are, of course, not confined to just one or the other of the strategic objectives. They need to be taken forward in synergy across policy areas. Three of these have been highlighted in the Annual Policy Strategy, the first being energy and climate change, where we need to deliver on the very positive results of the European Council in Hampton Court and the key elements of the energy package must be put in place - well-functioning internal markets, a vibrant renewable sector, energy efficiency and solidarity and interconnection. All those proposals will be taken forward. We will, of course, also push for strong commitments by the EU and global stakeholders to the post-Kyoto process. Secondly, there is the renewed Lisbon Strategy for Growth and Jobs. We think we are making good progress on this in partnership with the Member States and next year we will reflect on how to press ahead with further reports. We will do a single market review and a social reality check which will be presented this year and the Commission will launch a series of initiatives to make sure that the single market continues to deliver on its economic promise and allow citizens to reap the benefits. The third cross-cutting issue is migration and with its various facets this is the key challenge to the EU. Labour migration properly managed can make a positive contribution to our economies and our societies and we plan to propose further measures to achieve a common European asylum system by 2010. We will also need further action on preventing illegal migration, combating the ruthless business of human trafficking and also protecting our common borders. Finally, if you would allow me just one word on human resources, this Annual Policy Strategy also proposes some reallocation of staff and calls for a limited number of additional staff in line with the Commission's predicted needs to cover the needs due to enlargement only. All other priorities will be covered through internal reallocation within the Commission and efficiency gains. There is already, as you know, a multi-annual financial framework in place for the period 2007-2013, and what is proposed in our Annual Policy Strategy falls within this framework to a large extent. Some marginal modifications that are needed are highlighted in our annual policy plan. Most of the policy proposals included in this APS will not have any direct impact on next year's budget. The reason for that is that the legislative proposals first have to be adopted by the Council and the European Parliament so the idea of establishing a direct link between the strategic policy dialogue and the annual budgetary process as proposed in the report drawn up by the House of Lords EU Committee needs to be further thought through. This may be something you would wish for but it is not yet the case that there is total symbiosis between these two processes. After this introduction I am happy to answer any questions you have. Chairman: That is fine. That was integrated into the answer to the question I asked about the dialogue. It is worth explaining to you that the role of the European Scrutiny Committee in the Commons is not similar to that in the Lords. The Lords tend to set up in their Standing Committees investigations into the merits of proposals. We tend not to look at the merits. We refer the merits for debate to our Standing Committees. We deal with the question of the legal, political and economic importance of matters that come from the European Commission and we have referred our inquiry to all of the Standing Committees, the Select Committees of the departments and issue committees of the House, and some of them have in fact responded on questions of substance in your Annual Policy Strategy document. They will be included in our report which will come to you by the end of July when we hope to have that finished, but we are really interested in the process and whether it enhances the scrutiny that we try to carry out on behalf of the UK Parliament, so it is in a sense more of a focus on the process and its worth and robustness rather than on the contents of the Annual Policy Strategy document itself. Q98 Jim Dobbin: Commissioner Wallström, welcome to the European Scrutiny Committee. That was a very interesting introduction. I just have a couple of questions that might enable you to expand on what you have already said. The first one is, why has greater emphasis been placed on the dialogue this year, particularly with the national parliaments? Commissioner Wallström: Since this is the first time that there has been a Commissioner responsible for working with national parliaments and establishing a co-operation with national parliaments, this was done for the first time with the Barroso Commission and I do have that as a portfolio responsibility, already two years ago I presented a ten-point programme for the work of national parliaments. Since then we have intensified our work on this and also tried to improve our procedures, make them more open, more inclusive, including the contacts with national parliaments and also with the European Parliament, and build on our experiences. It is a bit like learning by doing to see what we can get out of it. We would like to see more of a political process and procedure where we also want the parliaments to be able to say that they find these overall objectives too limited or they would like to add this or that. As I said, one innovation is to have also communication priorities, so you can say that we are in a constant learning procedure but I think basically that to give more of a voice to national parliaments is to give us also a better chance to connect to citizens, to the democratic traditions that exist in every Member State and with respect to the political parties and how they work in every Member State. I think this is the only way to create a good debate about European affairs in Europe. Q99 Jim Dobbin: In what ways does the 2008 Annual Policy Strategy differ from previous years to make the dialogue more effective? Commissioner Wallström: I think we have first of all been able to explain better the overall objectives. I think we have also been able to identify communication priorities, which has not been done before, and we have been able to take into account, for example, what the European Parliament has said. One other example of where we have made our Commission priorities in tune with the European Parliament's comments is requests on courts policy. They wanted a legal framework on services of general interest, they wanted measures in the area of flag(?) security which I know my colleague is now working on to present later on, the regulatory framework for electronic communication, et cetera, so we have been able to follow up more clearly, I would say, and prove to them that we have taken these things into account. We have added a number of issues and initiatives but it is never complete. This is in constant evolution. Q100 Kelvin Hopkins: Based on the views you have heard so far in the course of what is described as the "constructive dialogue", how do you think the process might be improved in future years? Commissioner Wallström: I would like to see maybe more of these general debates in the national parliaments; I would welcome that, those initiatives to present at an early stage the Annual Policy Strategy, also for national parliaments to be able to identify what will come up because it is all about timing. It is about knowing well in advance so that national parliaments can make their voices heard or have an influence on the policy strategy, so I would like to maybe see more of that as well as getting the European Parliament into more of this overall assessment of the Annual Policy Strategy, so for them to say, "We think the balance is too much on this or that", or, "We would like to add bigger issues". Otherwise every committee only looks at its own agenda and says, "This particular regulation ought to be so-and-so", or, "You have forgotten this or that", which is, of course, good as well, but for the Annual Policy Strategy it is more about what are the priorities for the European Union and to do more on the communication part as well. Q101 Kelvin Hopkins: There is much evidence that there is a lot of scepticism about the European Union, in which direction it is going and how far it has gone, as evidenced by the French referendum, the Dutch referendum and, indeed, the Swedish referendum on the euro, but these voices are not heard in the institutions which are having this dialogue. Would it not be better to build in some of those voices at the institutional level? Commissioner Wallström: This is what comes from every national parliament. Also you would have those voices, or the fears or the concerns, raised in the debate. I think it would help to bring it more to the national level as well. The debate would have to take place both in the national parliaments according to national democratic traditions as well as at the European level. There is not one week goes by without us discussing the results of or the lessons learned from the French referendum or from the Dutch referendum, and the media report very much also the Euro sceptic positions and I think this is good. That is how it should be in a democratic society. You can hear both sides and different views. Q102 Chairman: I can assure you, Commissioner, that the voice of Kelvin Hopkins is heard regularly and loudly and most lucidly in the Parliament on all the issues he has raised with you today. Can I ask you a question which we have not touched on in referring to what came out of the discussion with the Lords Committee? The document has been described as "aspirational", which can be a sign of broad but weak indications of where we wish to go. Would it not be more useful if it were linked more closely to the budget and affordability of the contents of the strategy document so that people knew, if you like, the price tag of the competence of delivery on the things that are in the aspirations? Commissioner Wallström: This is ideally what you would like to see as you have it in any national democratic decision-making process. You would like to link the budget and the money to your political priorities but this is not exactly how it works in the European Union because of the time lag that comes from such a rather heavy decision-making process that we have, and also the kind of budgeting procedures that we have with the long-term budgets. You will only see the money come up and be decided on afterwards or in the long term framework, so it does not follow exactly. The timing you need is to plan and decide on different proposals, including the budget in the European Union, so there is no direct correspondence. The purpose of the Annual Policy Strategy is also precisely to set this overall political framework in which the annual budget then is to be established and this is the first stage in a procedure where what comes is the legislative and work programme and that is much more detailed and that is where you can start to calculate the costs of it as well. As it is today, the institutional framework is such that there is seldom a direct link between the policy initiatives during one year and their related expenses in the same year. That is what I think we have to look at now when we are making the budget with you as well and, as you know, this is going to start in the autumn. All the institutions will start to look at the budget review and what we want to get out of the budget review. Q103 Chairman: You can understand presumably why such a question would be so important. You would never run a national government, hopefully, or in fact our own domestic economies, on the basis that we decide what we want and just tell them to send it to us regardless of the bill at the end of the day. It may be that it is not affordable, so the problem of having aspirational statements that become policy, that become bills in reality, may be inconsistent with the other aspiration, which is to be efficient, effective and economically affordable, so you can see why I hope that people are concerned because if it is too wide a sweep it will not tell people what they are signing up to. Eventually they will become policies and policies will come with budgets and bills and costs. Commissioner Wallström: Chairman, they do not have to be too concerned because there is a budgetary and legal framework that sets the frames and the limits called for in expenses that we will have for policy initiatives and we know that we can also not go to the European Parliament and ask for more money so we will have to stick to the budget frame for a given year. We have had a number of examples where we think the rigidity of this system is maybe too big and that the controls are too burdensome. I think that if it once was lax now we are maybe over-controlled sometimes in the use of taxpayers' money and we have improved it also year by year, and a lot of it, of course, is spent in Member States. Most of it is. Q104 Mr Cash: But, Commissioner, the Court of Auditors has failed to sign off the accounts of the Union so often, 14 times. Forgive me, but I cannot follow what you are saying because you are suggesting that somehow or other there is proper accountability and I have very grave concern that actually it is nothing of the kind. Commissioner Wallström: The reason for this is exactly that, that most of the money is spent in Member States and what we now try to do is also to make Member States declare how they use and spend the money from the European Union through the structural funds and the different ways of funding activities in Member States, the common agricultural policy, for instance. This is all spent by Member States. Mr Cash: That is not what the Court of Auditors says. Chairman: Can I suggest that it is an attractive diversion but not one we have time to follow. Q105 Mr Clappison: Commissioner, the Annual Policy Strategy talks a lot about the delivery agenda. Can I ask you to say in specific terms what you are going to deliver to our constituents? Commissioner Wallstrom: You mean to the UK? Q106 Mr Clappison: What you would say to our constituents and people elsewhere what you are going to do, specifically. Commissioner Wallström: I could mention, let us say, climate change and energy issues, if I choose only two things, or I could mention what has been happening on passenger safety or on roaming charges for citizens - I think they also need a very concrete examples of how we can change everyday life - or I could use an area which I know very well, which is the environment, where saving water, including in the UK, is, as a result of legislation at the EU level, implemented in all Member States, so I think I would mention especially these two issues because that is an interest of most citizens today. Q107 Mr Borrow: One of the areas in the proposal is to do further work on the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base. This has been raised in the past and has been strongly opposed by a number of Member States and many in the UK are somewhat surprised that the Commission should be raising this again given the strong opposition from Member States. It seems a somewhat hopeless task and a waste of energy to seek to further advance something which clearly is not going to get anywhere at all. Commissioner Wallström: You are absolutely right and we have seen from the discussion in the Council that the assessment of such an initiative differs from Member State to Member State. There are also delegations who welcome this and the European value-added is, of course, that it will be possible to compare and use the same base in an internal European market. It is important to be able to say that we use the same way of calculating the tax base. It is not establishing the same taxes but it is to say that this is how we calculate the tax base. We are now looking at all these different views and we are reflecting on the need for further action in this area and to be able to describe what is the European value-added of this initiative, and we are right now making an impact assessment, so we will look at all the economic and social and other effects of such a proposal, but it is clear that Member States have very different views on it. Q108 Mr Borrow: Could you clarify for the Committee what is the legal base for having such a proposal? Commissioner Wallström: That I cannot answer straightaway but I would be happy to come back and tell you exactly what is the legal base that we use for this. I am not an expert in this field, as you will understand, but I will be happy to provide the answer. Q109 Chairman: Does none of your officials have that information? Mr Leffler: Not at hand. Q110 Chairman: We would be happy to receive correspondence to the Committee if you wish. Commissioner Wallström: I will do that. Q111 Chairman: That is one of our duties, to look at the legal base of any proposal from the European Union. Commissioner Wallström: Chairman, I just want to say that there is no proposal yet. This is really something that has been brought up for discussion with Member States and, as I said, we are looking at doing an impact assessment to look at what are the different views and what will be the impact of it. Chairman: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Can I just say that we will send you a copy of our report and appended to that report will be the responses we have had from some of the Committees of the Parliament looking at the points of substance which are contained in the Annual Policy Strategy document and giving you, let us say, a collective opinion of whatever value that has on the process of the Annual Policy Strategy document. I think it is worth saying to you that this Committee views very positively the idea of engaging at a very early date with the process of policy-making in the European Union and hopefully, by alerting the Committees of this Parliament to the issues we see of legal and political importance, we can encourage the ministers in their deliberations in the EU Parliament to take much more seriously the interests of parliaments in the communications with or inquiries about any policy issue, and we think it can only be positive to engage as early as possible, so we are very grateful to the Commission for the initiative in general. |