EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY—DRAFT
PRESIDENCY REPORT
Letter from the Chairman to Rt Hon Geoff
Hoon MP, Minister for Europe, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Sub-Committee C on 14 December considered the
above document and cleared it from scrutiny.
The Sub-Committee has however commented that
they had been given very little time to consider the document,
and in future would request a longer lead time for their scrutiny,
or, if that it not possible because a Commission or Council document
is not available, an explanatory letter with advance notice and
information along the lines of your helpful letter of 6 December
on "European Security and Defence Policy—Prospective
Activity". Your letter on the "Council Decision on the
ATHENA mechanism for common funding of ESDP military operations"
was welcome in the absence of a depositable text but, again, the
Sub-Committee would have liked to have seen it earlier.
19 December 2006
Letter from Rt Hon Geoff Hoon MP to the
Chairman
Thank you for your letter of 19 December about
the submission of the draft Presidency Report to the Committee.
It was unfortunate that we were not able to
get the report to you as soon as we would have liked. This was
due to a first draft not being released by the Presidency until
three weeks before the December Council which resulted in discussions
on the content of the report being concluded on the eve of the
Council. It was only when the report began to take its final shape—the
draft mandate for the incoming German Presidency was only added
10 days before the Council—that we were able to submit it
to you.
I am aware of the importance of keeping the
Committee aware of developments, as I did with the two reports
you mentioned in your letter. Should future Presidency Reports
suffer a similar delay I wiil ensure that you are advised accordingly.
11 January 2007
| 
