Meeting Summary
Common Agricultural Policy — emerging agreement
to be debated
We are recommending four sets of proposals for debate
this week. Changes to the Common Agricultural Policy have
been under discussion for some time, and were debated in a House
of Commons European Committee in January 2012. However, as negotiations
intensify, it is clear that further far-reaching changes may be
proposed in the run-up to a final agreement by the end of June.
The Committee has received regular updates from the Government
and we have decided that these documents should be debated again,
preferably on the floor of the House, before a conclusion is reached.
2014 European elections — proposed changes
to the electoral process
The second debate we are recommending relates to
the European elections in 2014. This originates from a
recommendation by the Commission to Member States to make changes
to their electoral processes in order to make the elections to
the European Parliament in 2014 more directly relevant to citizens
of the EU. The UK Government is highly critical of the proposals,
which include a recommendation for a single voting day across
the EU and a single time of closing of the polls. The proposals
are not legally binding but we agree with the Government's concerns
and are recommending the documents for debate, again on the floor
of the House.
Deploying high-speed electronic communication
networks — Reasoned Opinion
We are recommending that the House adopts a Reasoned
Opinion on a proposed Regulation on measures to reduce the
cost of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks.
The Committee takes the view that this proposal does not comply
with the principle of subsidiarity and that the policy objectives
would be better approached at the EU level if they were modified
and contained in a Directive rather than a Regulation.
We are also recommending a set of documents relating
to economic governance for debate in European Committee.
Sanctions measures — scrutiny issues
There are two Chapters of the Report relating to
sanctions measures — in Somalia and Myanmar/Burma.
In both cases we ask the Government to work with the European
External Action Service to keep us better informed about the progress
of proposals through scrutiny to avoid the need for an over-ride
at the latest stages of agreement. We are concerned that this
important area of scrutiny is not working particularly well at
the moment, and we are likely to take this forward as part of
our current scrutiny inquiry.
EUBAM Libya — local capacity
We are also reporting on steps to establish an Integrated
Border Management Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM Libya),
asking for further information urgently from the Minister (in
particular his view of the local administration's capacity to
support the mission) before we clear the document.
Climate change and renewable energy — request
for an Opinion
The Committee also considered various proposals relating
to climate change — a Commission Communication on
climate policy, a Commission Report on Renewable Energy and a
Green Paper on Climate and energy policies 2030. All three are
reported to the House because of their importance to the climate
change debate and the run-up to the International Climate Change
Agreement due in 2015, and we will be asking the Energy and Climate
Change Committee for its formal 'Opinion' on the proposals.
Other documents reported
We are also reporting on documents relating to the
European Defence Agency, the EU Justice Scoreboard, origin
marking for imports from third countries, the 2013 Budget, protection
of intellectual property rights outside the EU, financing EU external
action, animal tests for cosmetics and EU-Syria relations.
The Committee's report will be published next week.
The draft Reasoned Opinion will be published separately on Monday.
The tenth oral evidence session of the scrutiny
inquiry has also taken place this week — with Sir Jon
Cunliffe, the UK's Permanent Representative to the EU. The transcript
will be available on the Committee's website next week, but the
session is available to view now on www.parliamentlive.tv.
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