House of Lords - European Union - Twenty-Third Report

Select Committee on European Union Twenty-Third Report

CHAPTER 2: THE COMMISSION'S ANNUAL POLICY STRATEGY FOR 2008

What is an Annual Policy Strategy for?

5. Although the Annual Policy Strategy itself states that it "presents the Commission's proposals for key initiatives to be taken forward in 2008", we found that our witnesses seemed to have differing views of what the document sets out and of the Commission's purposes in publishing it.[8]

6. Commissioner Wallström saw the APS as an aspirational statement, in which "We [the Commission] explain our intentions", and "define our main policy priorities and key initiatives", with a view to "a dialogue with the European Parliament where we can focus on the political priorities, the bigger picture" and discuss whether the Commission's priorities are "the right ones" (QQ 21, 48).[9] However, Gary Titley MEP, Leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, said that the APS "is not meant to be a major policy development piece of work but really a sort of annual check-up on where we are going in relation to what has gone on before and what the Commission has set out in its five year strategy" (Q 85). Timothy Kirkhope MEP, Leader of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, and Geoff Hoon MP, Minister for Europe both saw the APS more in terms of a snapshot than a forward vision, with the Minister considering it "a good snapshot of where the European Commission are in terms of what they would like to say" and of "how the EU is moving" (QQ 12; 121, 127).

7. Overall, national parliaments are not clear about what the purpose of the APS is: at the May 2007 meeting of COSAC (the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union), "Some parliaments … asked what the actual objective of the APS was."[10]

8. The APS seems to perform a number of different roles, providing an update on the current situation of EU policy, and prioritising previously agreed EU policy areas, as well as proposing key new initiatives for the coming year. The matter is further complicated by the Annual Policy Strategy's role as the 'white paper' for the subsequent Annual Legislative and Work Programme, and by the relationship between the APS and the budgetary process (explored below). We recognise this multi-dimensionality, and understand that tackling these different dimensions in separate documents might not be helpful.

9. However, the confusion as to the purpose of the APS, and as to whether the APS puts forward the Commission's ambitions for the next year or presents a more factual assessment of the state of play, might make holding a constructive debate on the priorities of European Union action and on what should feature in the Commission's Legislative and Work Programme more difficult. We accordingly consider that future Annual Policy Strategies need to be clearer about the purpose of the document and about the specific status of each of the priorities or proposals listed. The Commission should provide more background to its proposals so that the reader can more easily understand whether, in including a particular point, the Commission is prioritising a long-standing objective, re-affirming or updating such an objective, or tabling an entirely new initiative for discussion.

Towards a more strategic Strategy

10. We consider that in its current, unclarified form, the breadth of the APS (necessary for its role as the discussion document for the ALWP) makes it difficult to see the document as a genuine 'strategy'. If the Commission focussed its APS on only a few key strategic goals, the clear priority given to these goals would lead to more effective debate and delivery, these goals could be more easily communicated, and the European Union would be better understood. This concern is a shared one: at the May 2007 COSAC meeting, "Some delegations questioned the practicality of the large number of objectives as laid down in the APS".[11] Commissioner Wallström said: "We have learned from the process and we have chosen to try to strip it down more and more … a strategy ought to be very precise" (Q 28). We encourage her in her efforts.

11. We consider that the Annual Policy Strategy should provide the clear overarching strategy of the Commission's vision for the coming year. It should also indicate, for each area of this strategy, what are the key policy intentions that the Commission will prioritise to achieve that end.

12. Details of the legislative programme should be left to the ALWP, but in the APS it is important both that the strategy should be linked to pragmatic proposals and that the proposals should be given strategic context and the vision behind them explained. A clear example of where such an approach would be helpful is in relation to criminal justice. This important policy area receives only a brief mention in the APS for 2008, which provides little context for a genuine debate on criminal justice priorities.[12]

13. As already outlined, to unlock the full utility of presenting the Commission's strategy for the European Union, it is necessary that the reader should understand the importance of the Commission's decision to list a particular proposal or policy area as a priority. To this end, we believe that the Annual Policy Strategy should explain which policy areas have moved up the Commission's agenda in the past year (as well as which have moved down), and how the Commission's thinking has developed.

14. To emphasise the Commission's clear strategic thought behind its APS, the structure of the APS is important. While we understand the Commission's decision to group its proposals under the headings of its five year strategic objectives, such an approach is not helpful to the institutions and parliaments trying to engage with the APS, given the breadth of these objectives (for example, under the title of "Solidarity", it is hard to see much of a connection between implementation of the REACH legislation and the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue).[13]

15. The clarity of the structure would be improved if the proposals were collected and presented under policy fields so that those looking at the Annual Policy Strategy could quickly find their areas of interest. We note that the European Parliament has resolved that it "regrets that the APS classifications of prosperity, solidarity, security and external projection represent a … classification system that is rather arbitrary as regards the classification of policy areas under the different chapters".[14] The institutions of the EU should, as a general rule, seek to make information more accessible by structuring it in a more instinctive, easily understandable manner (i.e. by policy area). The Commission should also clarify the significance of designating some priorities as "cross-cutting", and how this designation relates to the ways in which these priorities will be actioned.[15]

The production of the Annual Policy Strategy

16. It is our view that the lack of focus in the APS is an inevitable result of the way in which it is constructed inside the Commission. Commissioner Wallström outlined the procedure for us:

"It is prepared internally within the Commission through a letter circulated by the President to all Commissioners and he invites us and our services to prepare, to look at what we have in the pipeline, what are the plans for the future, and then we present our initiatives, or the main policy priorities, to him and they are analysed and prioritised by the Secretariat-General who then prepares an Annual Policy Strategy for the inter-service consultation. They put all of this together and try to make a structure out of it, a priority list, and then it comes back after the intra-consultation to the College" (Q 25).

17. The APS is, therefore, constructed from the bottom up, with every Directorate lobbying for its own area and point of view to be included, until almost nothing is excluded from the Commission's 'strategy'. Gary Titley MEP said that "There is a risk because, in a sense, if you are a Commissioner and people are writing articles about you, you have got to be able to show you have done something"; Timothy Kirkhope MEP thought that "we now have rather a lot of Commissioners and sub-Commissioners … whilst we have that situation, it is very difficult not to reflect views from all of them" (QQ 106; 5). Furthermore, according to Timothy Kirkhope MEP, "inevitably there is a temptation, almost a necessity, for all the areas of the Commission's [Legislative and] Work Programme to be reflected in the document" (Q 5).

18. To counter this problem, we believe that the construction of the Annual Policy Strategy needs to be led from the top: the College of Commissioners should decide on the vision behind the Annual Policy Strategy on the basis of a discussion in which the Commissioners would select both their strategic priorities and the policy areas that must be demoted to make room for them. Further detail for the priorities could then be provided by the Commission services. Commission Directorates-General should not expect to have all of their proposals included in the Annual Policy Strategy. This should result in a more focussed, strategic, structured and coherent APS. At the same time, there has to be a degree of flexibility to allow for late-emerging priorities to be taken into account.

A well-structured dialogue?

19. It is crucial to the utility of the Annual Policy Strategy that it should provoke a constructive debate within and between the European institutions and parliaments about the European Union's priorities for the coming year. This "structured dialogue" should increase engagement with the EU and help the institutions and parliaments to find a common path (Q 25). Timothy Kirkhope MEP thought that this opportunity for debate was "important in terms of our institutional relationships" and "a welcome opportunity for a general engagement in what is going on in the European Union" (Q 12). The dialogue also contributes to the formation of the ALWP: Commissioner Wallström confirmed that "If we see that there is absolutely no endorsement of these ideas then we will have to conclude that it is impossible" (Q 49).

20. The APS is published in February, and shortly thereafter is presented to the European Parliament, which holds a plenary debate on the document. Commissioners then appear before the policy committees of the Parliament, following which the Conference of Committee Chairs meets with Commissioner Wallström to discuss their conclusions. A synoptic document is produced by the Conference on behalf of the Parliament and sent to the Conference of Presidents of political groups in September for endorsement, and then on to the Commission. Commissioner Wallström then comes back to the Conference to discuss this paper, before the Legislative and Work Programme is presented in November and debated in the Parliament in December.[16]

21. Commissioner Wallström emphasised the value of this dialogue, but also that it was important that "we do not end up discussing only details on this or that proposal" (Q 21). The Commissioner said: "We have seen that there is a tendency for this structured dialogue to be very much on the detail instead of having the political groups engaged … [we want] to make sure that the political groups in the European Parliament are better drawn into the preparations because then we will have a better overview and more of a general discussion: are these the priorities, what do the different political groups in the Parliament think about it?" (Q 25)

22. Gary Titley MEP identified the same problem: "The European Parliament has a tendency to look at these communications from the Commission from a technical point of view by committee and I think this is a weakness of the European Parliament which is now becoming a major weakness, because what is needed is a political response and the European Parliament needs to find a mechanism for responding politically and not technically to the Commission's position" (Q 85).

23. We believe that the way in which the APS is scrutinised by the European Parliament, in "salami-slices" examined by separate committees, compounds the problem of the lack of a coherent vision in the APS by diluting any strategic overview (Q 92). Gary Titley MEP felt that, if the APS is examined in this way, "each committee then throws in its favourite topics and there is a failure to get an overall perspective which then ends up often producing nothing more than shopping lists" (Q 92). While we recognise that examination of the different policy areas by different committees is inevitable, an APS which is both constructed and deconstructed predominantly 'by committee' is unlikely to be strong on the strategic content necessary to provoke the "bigger picture" debate desired by the Commission; it is necessary that the committees should work to coordinate their scrutiny and to focus on broad priorities rather than specific proposals (Q 21).

24. Klaus Welle, chef de cabinet to the European Parliament's President Pöttering, admitted that the current system is not perfect. "There is still an objective problem with the position we have in the Parliament and this is that we have two procedures to come to a final conclusion. We have the expert procedure, coming through the committees … but equally we have a resolution in plenary in December which is motivated by the political groups and is … setting political priorities. Additional work is still needed in the house to reflect how we can better link these two exercises—how the preparatory work that is being done by parliamentary committees becomes fruitful and can be accepted by the political groups" (Q 71).

25. It is important that the political prioritisation exercise that constitutes the APS should be met by a political response, in order that the agreed priorities for the EU can be manifested in the proposals of the subsequent Legislative and Work Programme. There should be a strong political lead to the European Parliament's scrutiny of the Annual Policy Strategy. We recommend that the European Parliament consider methods by which a more political response to the Annual Policy Strategy could be generated. The production of such a response could be focused on the forum of the Conference of Committee Chairs, as suggested by Gary Titley MEP (Q 101). One possibility would be for the European Parliament to complement the work it does on the APS in committee by holding a plenary debate and adopting a resolution on the APS in September. This would allow the political groups to express their opinion on the APS before the Commission produces its ALWP.[17] The Parliament may also wish to consider whether the Commission should enter into a political dialogue with each political group as part of its engagement with the Parliament as a whole.

Should the Commission juggle balls or pitch them?

26. The agreement of the European Union's priorities for the coming year involves finding a compromise between many different forces. As Commissioner Wallström pointed out, it firstly involves a balancing of political directions, for which a constructive dialogue with the political groups in the European Parliament is essential (Q 26). Furthermore, the Commission is itself bound by its five-year strategic objectives, and working alongside multi-annual plans such as the Lisbon Strategy. Nor is the Commission the only source of ideas: as Commissioner Wallström said of the Commission, "sometimes we struggle very hard for our right of initiative … we have to be flexible to the European Parliament and the Council and sometimes we have to accept that they come with new proposals" (Q 28) The Council has its own agendas and priorities, which are set by the six-month Presidencies of Member States, on the basis of national concerns and collaborative 18-month programmes. Gary Titley MEP emphasised that "six-month presidencies are not designed for coherence of development" (Q 104). Moreover, the other Member States also have to be satisfied: the Minister for Europe explained that there is "a dynamic process of exchanges of views and information" between the Commission and Member States, while national parliaments will also have opinions (Q 142).

27. The coordination of this wide variety of different interests is difficult. With regard to an inter-institutional agreement on the priorities of the EU following the publication of the APS, Klaus Welle said "There are no tripartite efforts in this area and I think that is a weakness" (Q 80). The Council commented on the APS for 2008, but their comments are not public and have not been shared with the European Parliament. We recommend that the Government should press the Council to make its comments on the Annual Policy Strategy public in order to aid inter-institutional discussion and add to transparency.

28. In addition, Gary Titley MEP linked this to the proposed introduction of a permanent Council President, which would enable the Council to agree consistent priorities and "could work with both the Commission and the Parliament to provide much greater strategic analysis of where the European Union should be going" (Q 104).

29. Given the number of bodies involved in the formation of the EU's priorities, it is all the more important that the Annual Policy Strategy should clearly explain whose viewpoint it represents and what part it is intended to play in this dialogue. Furthermore, where the Annual Policy Strategy includes cross-cutting priorities where competence is shared, discussion of the EU's role in these areas and how it interacts with Member States' action is essential.

30. We believe that instead of trying to find a compromise between the different points of view the Commission should use its APS to clearly state its ambitions for the coming year. Timothy Kirkhope MEP thought that "perhaps we should not be over-balancing here, we should be stating clearly what is necessary and where our priorities ought to lie" (Q 4). The Annual Policy Strategy should be a presentation of the Commission's strategic thinking to the other institutions, provoking a political debate and providing the Council with options to discuss. The Commission should not feel bound to reflect the priorities of the European Parliament or Member States in constructing its APS, as the right place for these priorities to be expressed is through the structured dialogue leading towards the ALWP; nor should it feel bound to include the priorities of incoming Council Presidencies, although the Commission and Council Presidencies should both be aware of the ambitions of the other in preparing their respective work programmes.[18] In addition, the better structured APS with improved explanation of the Commission's thought which we advocate above will itself make the Commission's own position more apparent.

Justifying action

31. As we have highlighted, we would like the APS to be an opportunity to get inside the Commission's mind and see the Commission's vision of the priorities for the European Union in the coming year. The Commission's key proposals should be accompanied by some explanation of the rationale behind them, the arguments for action, and the context of the proposals in terms of the Commission's objectives.

32. The Commission should provide a clear justification for its key proposals, explaining why the European Union should act in these areas and setting out the limits on such action. When setting out priorities or proposals where there are concerns regarding Community competence in the field, such as the initiatives following from the "Social Reality Stocktaking" of 2007, the Commission should be clearer about what action is specifically not contemplated.[19] Potential confusion about a bold-sounding proposal such as "implementing a centralised database of fingerprints" might be averted if the Commission provided more explanation about what was intended.[20]

33. The Commission should also refrain from dedicating too many resources to planning for implementing controversial proposals where concerns about the need for European Union action have not yet been resolved: we register our unease regarding the Commission's pledge to undertake preparatory work to ensure that the contentious European Institute of Technology (EIT) will become operational in 2009.[21] (Commissioner Wallström defended the Commission on this point by explaining that the EIT was on the Commission's 'wish list' of proposals that would have to be dropped if they met sufficient opposition, but the reader of the APS would understand little difference between this proposal and, for example, the implementation of the already-agreed REACH legislation; there is a need for such differences to be clear).[22]

34. The Commission should therefore explain the 'added value' it envisages in its key proposals, as well as considering, in preparing its Annual Policy Strategy, how individual proposals fit into its general strategy and financial framework and how it will ensure delivery of them. To the Minister for Europe, it seemed "that if there is anything at all missing here—and it is a very comprehensive statement on a series of ambitions—it is how you do it" (Q 126).

Matching resources to ambitions

35. As the Minister for Europe pointed out, it is important to know that "sufficient and adequate resources" are available to back up the Commission's ambitions (Q 126). Unfortunately, we found it impossible to understand the financial situation from the APS itself. The Commission's tables showing the allocation of financial resources are, in the Commissioner's own words, "confusing" and "totally incomprehensible" (Q 42). We join with the European Parliament in calling for the Commission to "explore possibilities for a better presentation, facilitating easier and better understanding of the different financial programming and budget documents".[23]

36. If the Commission's priorities cannot be seen to be financially feasible, there is a danger that the APS will look woolly and unconvincing. Again, our apprehension in this area is echoed by other national parliaments, which questioned the practicality of the APS "with regard to the budget" at the May 2007 COSAC meeting.[24]

37. We are concerned that the Commission, in stating its priorities for the coming year, appears to be playing a zero-sum game. As Commissioner Wallström confirmed, the Financial Perspective for 2007-13 has been agreed, and the changes within its framework are "marginal"; when asked whether this meant that if the Commission wanted to spend more on one category it would have to spend less on another, the Commissioner answered: "That is absolutely true" (QQ 41, 45). Klaus Welle told us that "up until now this has not occurred as a problem", but the lack of clarity itself is problematic, and we note that the European Parliament has resolved that "as a result of very small margins under the different ceilings of expenditure, the EU's capacity to react to policy changes in budgetary terms is extremely limited" (Q 70).[25]

38. Bearing in mind the constraints imposed on the Commission by the way in which the budget is drawn up by the budgetary authority (the Council and the European Parliament), we urge the Commission to explain clearly in its Annual Policy Strategy the financial constraints around the APS, and the ways in which the Commission can (or cannot) change its spending priorities within this framework. Political priorities must be matched in budgetary terms, and to this end it would be helpful if the Commission would declare which areas of action are receiving less funding in order to allow the Commission to prioritise others.

39. We also note that where "final adoption is still pending" or there is "late adoption of the corresponding legal bases", the Commission intends to shift resources to other projects, and that a concern has been expressed in the European Parliament about the circumstances under which such a shift might occur.[26] It would be helpful if the Commission would further clarify the position.

40. In his evidence to us, Gary Titley MEP stated that "throughout discussions about what the European Union can do, and the Council are particularly guilty of this, there is always insufficient attention to where the money is going to come from to do it and how you are going to get there" (Q 87). When we questioned Klaus Welle about how the APS-ALWP process and the budgetary procedure are linked, as they logically should be, he noted that this was "a very legitimate question, because the whole concept of the Annual Policy Strategy is based on the assumption that the legislative agenda and the working agenda should enjoy the necessary financial means, so obviously both things need to come together" (Q 68). In Klaus Welle's view, "they are not yet sufficiently interlinked" (Q 68). He told us that "The Parliament is discussing how best to organise its budgetary debate in the autumn and whether that should be more closely linked with legislative planning, and whether the commitment of the European Commission to field its full team of Commissioners when it presents the Annual Legislative and Work Programme in the autumn could not be used to develop something in a new format, where the wider public might be able to see financial means and legislative measures brought together in a major orientation debate once a year" (Q 68).

41. We recommend that the Commission, Council and European Parliament should forge a closer link between the budgetary and legislative processes. We note that the European Parliament has resolved that it "regrets the lack of interaction between the Legislative [and] Work Programme and the budget procedure; … insists upon a better coherence between the two procedures; [and] reminds the Commission of its commitment … concerning an improved matching of legislative priorities and budgetary decisions".[27] The Commission reiterated at the May 2007 COSAC meeting that it envisions "a better connection between the budget and political priorities", and we welcome this attitude.[28] We would not want the Annual Policy Strategy to become dominated by a financial bidding process. Nonetheless the relationship of the Annual Policy Strategy to the budgetary procedure should be made clear, within the current financial perspective. We are also interested in the opinion of Gary Titley MEP that "every [European Parliament] committee should not just spend time arguing about their interest in the budget but afterwards they should be given responsibility for monitoring and expected to produce quarterly reports on the implementation of the budget" (Q 110).

42. We recognise that "the Commission are caught between the Council and Member States, who set out the Financial Perspectives, and the Parliament which in most of these areas is the budgetary authority", and we take on board the point made by Gary Titley MEP that "Ultimately the responsibility has to lie with the Council" (QQ 107-108). We therefore urge the Government to work to ensure that the Council assists in any effort to increase the correlation between political priorities and financial resources. We welcome the Minister's statement that "we want to carry on the process that has been underway for a number of years of ensuring that the resources that are available to the European Union and how they are spent matches the political priorities set in this document and set out by the British Government" (Q 125). Our Economic and Financial Affairs Sub-Committee will be conducting its annual scrutiny of the budget in the coming months.[29]

Communicating the Commission's priorities

43. In the Annual Policy Strategy for 2008 the Commission has, for the first time, included a list of communication priorities for the coming year.[30] It seems obvious to us that one important conduit for communicating the Commission's priorities and increasing engagement with the debate about the priorities for the EU should be the APS itself, and we are therefore disappointed that the Annual Policy Strategy for 2008 lacks the degree of clarity that would help the broader audience. Commissioner Wallström admitted that "We can look and understand but if somebody comes in who is not a Commission official it might not be that easy" (Q 43). We hope that our recommendations regarding the structure of and explanation behind the APS will help to improve its accessibility to a wider public.

44. We welcome the Commission's commitment to improving communication, but we would prefer the Commission to produce a more focused, strategic APS and work to communicate its few key priorities well than to produce such a long and broad list of proposals and attempt to communicate well on only a few of them. Beyond this, the Commission should place particular emphasis on the tangible results of its work, and could improve communication by taking a more structured approach, communicating on particular policy areas in the same way in which we would like it to focus the APS in a more coherent structure.

Better Regulation and the Annual Policy Strategy

45. The APS for 2008 includes a section entitled "Better Regulation—at the Heart of the Commission's Daily Work", and the ALWP included a list of simplification initiatives for the first time in 2006.[31] On the subject of Better Regulation, the Minister for Europe told us: "I am assured that the Commission have begun to make real progress … they have started extremely well" (QQ 140-141). We welcome the Commission's continuing commitment in this area, and reiterate our support for Better Regulation and, indeed, for deregulation where appropriate.[32] In particular, we welcome the emphasis now being placed upon impact assessments.

46. In discussing Better Regulation, Klaus Welle said that "we are in a process to try to integrate simplification into the APS procedure" (Q 75). He recommended that "there should be a proper consultation mechanism and at the stage of the Annual Policy Strategy the simplification programme for the next year should be available" (Q 70). He thought this was "crucial", because it was essential that the Commission should take into account the views of the Council and the Parliament "if the simplification agenda of the Commission is to have more success than in the past" (Q 70). Accordingly, "That is where the Annual Policy Strategy could develop a lot of additional importance" (Q 70). We agree that it is logical for the Commission to put forward its simplification proposals at the same time as its policy priorities, in order that both may be properly discussed before they are integrated into the ALWP. To maintain the strategic nature of the APS, this list of specific proposals should not be included in the APS, but published in a separate 'Annual Better Regulation Agenda Report' alongside the APS.

47. Regarding Better Regulation, Klaus Welle said that in his view, it was "very often the Council which is the weak link in this whole exercise" (Q 75). Whilst progress had been made on issues such as comitology and transparency, he suggested that work is necessary in the areas of impact assessments and legislative planning.

48. He contrasted the approach of the Commission and European Parliament to impact assessments with that of the Council: on impact assessments, "at least" the Commission had separated the conducting of impact assessments from the drafting of the legislation, and given it to an independent internal body (Q 75). He explained that the Parliament has established a budget line of €700,000 with which to undertake impact assessments on substantive amendments using external expertise. With regard to the Council, though, he was less positive: "I have doubts whether the Council, which likes to stress the importance of impact assessments, has in fact yet developed a proper mechanism to conduct such assessments on substantial amendments itself" (Q 75).

49. Klaus Welle was very critical of the Council's approach to coordination with the European Parliament on legislative planning, stating that "the Council up until now simply refuses to be part of a joint programming exercise" (Q 75). He suggested that, "the Council needs more actively to involve itself in the programming efforts of the other institutions and so contribute to transparency" (Q 75).

50. An area of Better Regulation in which the European Parliament could enhance its role, according to Klaus Welle, is transposition: "parliamentarians could play a bigger role here so that there is a feedback mechanism on how legislation that has been passed affects the citizens once it hits the ground" (Q 75).

51. Finally, Klaus Welle made reference to "discontinuity" (between the term of the European Parliament and the term of the Commission) (Q 75). He noted that progress will have been made if the Commission would be willing to give a proper response to the screening exercise undertaken by the European Parliament after each set of European elections (Q 75).

52. We recommend that the Commission's Annual Better Regulation Agenda Report should look at the quality of EU legislation, and the steps that the European institutions will take in the coming year to continue their progress on the Better Regulation agenda.

53. We are disappointed that the Commission, in its Annual Policy Strategy for 2008, does not mention the need to give greater prominence in impact assessments to fundamental rights and ensuring human rights compliance of its proposals, and we encourage the Commission to maintain a focus on this as it works on its strategic review of Better Regulation in the EU.[33] We urge the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament to continue their work on the Better Regulation agenda and continue to improve the quality of EU law-making.

Conclusions

54. We welcome the improvements that the Commission is making to its Annual Policy Strategy documents, and we hope that our recommendations will be helpful to the further development of the EU's strategic planning.

55. In his evidence to us, Klaus Welle said that the President of the European Parliament felt that "it can only be welcomed if national parliaments have a view early on of what is going to happen in the European Union", and accordingly, in the third chapter of this Report, we draw attention to some proposals of particular interest (Q 72). We intend to continue to publish our views on the Commission's APS in the coming years. However, our scrutiny and analysis of the APS needs to be assisted by a comprehensive Explanatory Memorandum from the Government. The EM should do more than summarise the proposals listed by the Commission; it should present the Government's initial thoughts on these proposals and priorities, and provide a preliminary assessment of the policy implications. The Government should also push the Commission to provide a more strategic, coherent, well explained and substantiated Annual Policy Strategy that would form the basis for this assessment.

56. On behalf of the Commission, Commissioner Wallström said "we hope that more and more of the national parliaments will … arrange a debate where the priorities are being discussed", and, in accordance with our stated desire to hold an annual debate on the floor of the House about the priorities of the European Union, we make this Report to the House for debate (Q 25).[34]

8 The APS for 2008, p 3. Back

9 Commissioner Wallström's speech presenting the APS for 2008 to the XXXVII COSAC (Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of Parliaments of the European Union, Berlin 15 May 2007 http://www.cosac.eu/en/meetings/Berlin2007/plenary/aps.pdf Back

10 Minutes of the XXXVII COSAC, Berlin, 14-15 May 2007, p 6, http://www.cosac.eu/en/ Back

11 Minutes of the XXXVII COSAC, Berlin, 14-15 May 2007, p 6, http://www.cosac.eu/en/ Back

12 The APS for 2008, pp 9-12. Back

13 The APS for 2008, pp 8-10. Back

14 European Parliament resolution on the Commission's annual policy strategy for the 2008 budget procedure, adopted 24 April 2007, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2007-0131+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN Back

15 The APS for 2008, p 5. Back