Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1
- 10)
MONDAY 3 DECEMBER 2007
Mr Malcolm Harbour
Q1 Chairman:
Good afternoon. Welcome to the Committee, Mr Harbour. Thank you
very much for coming to assist us. Would you like to describe
your present position in the European Parliament and perhaps make
an opening statement?
Mr Harbour: Thank you very much indeed for the
invitation to come and meet your Committee again. We have had
a number of very useful exchanges of view over the last few years.
I am one of the British Conservative members of the European Parliament
and I am a member of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee. I also have the overall responsibility in that Committee,
what is called a coordinator for the centre right political fraction
of the European Parliament, the European People's Party and European
Democrats. Essentially I am responsible for managing the team
of EPP-ED members on the Committee which is the largest group
in the Parliament—a not insignificant group—for planning
our political response to everything that is referred to the Committee,
for appointing rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs; essentially
anything that happens on the Committee is basically on my watch
so I keep a very close eye on those activities. I have also, in
parallel to that, been involved with policy work on the evolution
of the Single Market and we submitted to you on behalf of members
of the group some written evidence in your review of the Single
Market for the 21st Century document so I am very happy to talk
about some of those aspects. That is a bit of introduction and
if I may now address the prime question that you asked me to come
here for, which is around questions surrounding the Treaty and
I welcome the opportunity to do that. I think it is fair to say,
first of all, that the working committees on the European Parliament
in areas like mine on Internal Market have so far had very little
engagement with the impact of the Treaty. I think that is primarily
because, in terms of the basic Treaty articles that govern the
promotion and management of the Internal Market, we do not see
any fundamental change of direction emerging from the Treaty;
but with one significant danger point which I will refer to a
bit later on, the question of competition. We see that the core
articles of the Treaty on our main areas of responsibility, which
relate to the Internal Market and customs and consumer protection,
remain substantially unchanged. We do note that consumer protection
has now been specifically singled out as separate area of shared
competence between the European Union and the Member States on
the same basis as the Internal Market. The creation of our Committee
which, for the first time, brought those two areas together from
2004 onwards—previously consumer protection was the responsibility
of the Environment and Public Health Committee—I think has
already sharpened our work in that direction anyway and I also
observe that since January 2006 we have had a dedicated commissioner
for the Internal Market, Mrs Meglena Kuneva, who is doing an outstanding
job in my opinion and that has significantly raised the profile.
I just make those points as observations because I think in a
way we have anticipated the additional prominence on consumer
protection that will be given to us in the Treaty. I think there
are a number of other areas in this Treaty which we observe with
interest, if you like, as focussing importance—or more importance—on
some of the things we have already been working on, particularly
how to make the Internal Market function better. There are some
new Treaty provisions in terms of co-decision work where I think
there is some new description of our co-legislative role in the
Treaty which I have not quite got round to, but let us call it
co-decision, where we share responsibility with the Council on
freedom of establishment, free movement of services, particularly
aspects relating to the freedom of self-employed people to go
and offer their services in other parts of the European Union
and the removal of obstacles generally to the functioning of the
Internal Market and particularly areas like mutual recognition
of qualifications. As you will be aware from the evidence you
have taken from me twice now on the Single Market for services,
these are areas which have been a major preoccupation of this
Committee and I think the importance of these provisions in the
supply of services, on the whole need to ramp up the service economy
in the context of the Single Market and encouraging particularly
smaller enterprises to access those markets are well reflected
in this Treaty, so that is a part of it that we welcome. The other
area which I know your Committee is particularly interested in
is this complex and interesting question which, under the somewhat
heavy title of Services of General Interest and Services of General
Economic Interest (and I think we discussed those in the context
of the Services Directive), relate to the relative competences
of Commission Member States in the mechanisms that are provided
for the delivery of public services in the round, and of course
that includes a huge range of services ranging from social services,
health and transport right through to energy and electronic communications.
The Commission has been under pressure from some political quarters—particularly
from the left wing of the Parliament, from socialist groups and
from the other left wing groups—to come up with some sort
of framework directive which defines the competencies and roles
of Single Market legislation in the context of delivery of public
services. We have argued from my side of the House very strongly
against that proposal and I think that the provisions in the Treaty,
in terms of the article plus the protocol, clearly support our
position on that. I would also draw the attention of your Committee
to the working document that was annexed to the Single Market
for the 21st Century paper that you may have seen which further
amplifies that position. What the Commission has said is that
the whole area about delivery of public services is an area which
is extremely complex but, in the round, remains predominantly
the responsibility of the Member States. The style, organisation
and management of delivery of public services, particularly those
that are very close to the citizen like personal services, social
services, health, education, must remain the competence of Member
States. Where services are funded entirely through public expenditure
and the private sector is not involved, these are entirely the
responsibility of Member States, although of course it is possible—and
probably increasingly now—for there to be a mixed economy
in those areas so that a service delivery may include both services
delivered through the public purse directly and also private contractors
being involved in that. As the Commission points out, tendering
for public contracts will come under the provisions of the Single
Market legislation on public procurement. Similarly competition
issues, free movement of services issues and non-discrimination
against service providers from other countries remain in force
despite the fact that those public services are contracted out
as part of an overall bundle of services, in other words there
will be a mixed economy. However, the Commission cautions—quite
rightly in my view—against any sort of overarching solution
by saying that this is an immensely complex area but the basic
provisions of the Internal Market Treaty Articles will apply where
private enterprises are involved in contracting and delivering
public services. There have been some important test cases recently
around this, particularly in Germany, and there is a lot of sensitivity
in this area from my German colleagues, so perhaps I will just
pass that on to you. I visited Germany earlier this year and I
had the opportunity to talk to local authorities and there was
a great deal of interest in more consolidation of services between
local authorities. For example, you might find adjacent local
authorities pooling their service delivery maybe in health, education
or transport. The question is that if you then pool that services
delivery are you then required to essentially tender out again
the whole of that operation or can you actually allow the pooling
of the existing consortium to take on that responsibility without
the need for external tenders? So far the Court of Justice has
found that by and large there should be competitive tendering
in those circumstances. This is the sort of difficult area where
the Commission has said that it is prepared to provide guidance
to contracting parties and public authorities where there are
perhaps some more difficult cases in this area about how public
service requirements cut across the requirements for open tendering.
I think that is an area where I believe the protocol has moved
us in the right direction, but I am not convinced that we need
further legislation on that topic. I think that covers primarily
the articles of the Internal Market aspects of the Treaty. I did
want to mention one final point which is a much more fundamental
point, which is the change to the base articles in the main Treaty
of the European Union. What we have been talking about here is
the second Treaty which is the Treaty about the implementation
of requirements. I cannot remember what it is called now; I am
afraid I am not so familiar with it but as you know there are
the two treaties. I want to talk about the article in the foundation
Treaty about undistorted competition which is currently I think,
in the present Treaty, article 3(1)(g). As you will know that
phrase, a provision on an Internal Market on the basis of undistorted
competition has now been removed from the opening articles from
the new head Treaty. There is a protocol that covers that which
I know that your Lordships have read and looked at. I think our
concern remains that if you look at the jurisprudence of the Court
of Justice and if you look at some of these seminal cases that
relate to competition issues in the Single Market and the basis
of the Community legislation in ensuring undistorted competition,
you will see that there are a number of direct references in some
of the key judgments to the current article in the existing Treaty.
Our concern remains that if this is now relegated to a mere protocol
the basic principles of EU competition law in the round could
be significantly undermined when it comes to the first judgments
under this new Treaty. This, I think, is one of these areas—and
I observed this in a more broader context and other areas which
I know your Lordships are interested in, which is how regulation
is made and I think it is remarkable that for all the huffing
and puffing that goes on in Member States about the need for the
European Commission to improve impact assessments and pre-legislative
reviews, when it comes to a fundamental change like that it appears
out of the blue, overnight in a summit, without any proper assessment
or analysis of its impact and is agreed by the prime ministers.
I do not believe this is in any way a satisfactory practice. Generally,
we observed more broadly—this is another subject—and
have argued very strongly with Council on a number of occasions—and
I know you addressed some issues about how Council performs in
this area—that Council is conspicuously ignoring the inter-institutional
agreement on better regulation by not actually subjecting amendments
that it makes to Single Market legislation to a proper impact
assessment and review. That is a subject you may want to take
up on another occasion. I suspect I have probably spoken for a
bit too long but perhaps I can go on for just a couple of minutes
on the Commission's recent communication on the Single Market
for the 21st Century. I observe as a first point—this is
somewhat ironic I think—that we now have new consistency
within the treaties on the description of the Internal Market
and the Commission is now proposing that we should refer to it
from now on as the Single Market; not a terribly coordinated approach
one might think. I happen to agree with the Commission, by the
way, because I think the Single Market is much more user friendly
and a phrase that I think in communicating what we do to our electors
is actually a much more apt description of what we are trying
to achieve. We have been involved in the evolution of this report
for some time; we also submitted evidence to the Commission on
this. I think the Single Market for the 21st Century is an important
document and I very much welcome the fact that we now have the
Single Market put firmly on the agenda as an absolutely central
plank of economic reform but also the competitiveness of the European
Union in the global economy. I think it is a major advance in
this document that it really sets out clearly that if the European
Union is going to sustain and develop its competitive position
the completion of the Internal Market is a crucial weapon in doing
that. Setting the Single Market in the context of open trade is
extremely welcome and I think also the clear calls in this document
against protectionism in any form are extremely welcome. I think
the other strand which is crucial relates to what I said earlier
about consumers and consumer protection. I think the Commission
has done an important job of setting the Single Market very clearly
in the context of delivering benefits for all Europe's consumers.
By having a highly competitive market, enhancing choice, innovation,
investment, all of those areas we are doing a good job for consumers
but we need to articulate that much more than we do because actually
we need to sustain much more public support for the Single Market
as a concept. That leads me onto the third point because I think
that the Commission clearly sets out the importance of the shared
work and responsibility in delivering the Single Market that lies
between the Community institutions—or I should say now the
Union institutions—and the Member States. The Member States
on the ground are largely responsible for delivering aspects of
the Single Market and, as you will remember from our discussion
on the Services Directive, we attach great importance to the role
of member governments in promoting the Single Market, providing
things like single points of contact which we argued very strongly
for in the services directive and which we are considering to
follow through to ensure that the Member States do that. Also
linked to that are, I think, some imaginative and important ideas
about better tools for monitoring the Single Market rather than
just relying on the current Single Market scoreboard which I think
has become rather a stale instrument in simply recording the transposition
of Single Market legislation. We need much better indicators about
how competitive markets really are across the European Union so
we really can point our finger and see how instruments like public
procurement are really working out in the field and on the ground.
Again there was an important working document published for the
Single Market review which spells out some ideas. My concluding
point is that I really welcome the importance attached to small
enterprise and the access of small enterprise to the Internal
Market. I think there are some very interesting ideas about encompassing
those in a so-called Small Business Act which will bring together
maybe legislative but other instruments to really encourage SMEs
to access the small market and also deal with some of the issues
about the excessive legislative burden that is imposed on small
enterprises. All of these I think are imaginative and useful and
in broad terms I very much welcome the Single Market for the 21st
Century document. My absolutely final point to make is just to
advise you that the European Parliament will be holding its annual
meeting with national parliaments on the Single Market on 11 and
12 February 2008 when this document will be one of the key items
on the agenda, as will energy. I was pleased to remind Lord Walpole
that I had met him on a previous occasion because he had represented
your Lordships probably at the first meeting which was three or
four years ago, but we would obviously very much welcome a strong
representation from your Lordships' House and maybe from this
Committee in discussing these important issues.
Q2 Chairman:
Mr Harbour, thank you very much indeed for a very clear, very
helpful opening statement. May I just say, before I turn to members
of the Committee with some of their questions, because of the
pressures of time it may not be sensible to try to get through
all the questions which we have sent you, but if you feel moved
to send us in writing subsequently any specific comments—we
have had a chance, you and I, to discuss these and some of these
you feel outside your direct field of competence—anything
we can put on the record will be helpful. May I just start by
asking a question in relation to Services of General Interest?
When the Treaty is finally signed what difference will it make
in terms of the powers of the Commission and the relative sharing
of responsibilities between the Council and the Commission and
indeed parliaments, in relation to Services of General Interest?
I put my finger specifically on postal services because the evidence
we have already heard is that actually not much has changed; the
Commission will try, when it brings forward to justify either
further legislation or further action in relation to its competence
in relation to certain services that are partly economic, partly
paid for by the consumer, partly provided by the private sector,
but can you put your finger on specific examples of how the Treaty
will make a change?
Mr Harbour: I am not sure that the Treaty of
itself will actually make much change at all because I think this
issue was already absolutely in the centre of public debate. Again
I draw your attention to the paper that the Commission has issued
about the whole interpretation of its role with regard to Services
of General Interest and General Economic Interest which was written
under the provisions of the existing treaties. I think it will
perhaps confirm the view that I have just set out to you, that
the Commission does not have a broad interest in introducing any
sort of overarching legislation to define roles and responsibilities
because this is an immensely complex area which varies significantly
from state to state. On the broader question about those areas
of Services of General Economic Interest, of Services of General
Interest—but it is primarily General Economic Interest—where
there is a community framework (like electronic communications,
for example) then those are areas which the Member States have
decided need a Community framework because of their specific character.
That is true, as you know, for both postal services and for energy
which really come within those categories. I remark also—since
I have been doing a lot of work on electronic communications and
the upcoming reform which I hope your Committee will take an interest
in—that there are specific provisions in the Directive on
Universal Service which essentially provide a consistent mechanism
for allowing Member States to support universal service within
the framework of the overall legislation but do it in a way which
does not discriminate against private sector providers, in other
words the universal service provision has to be open to tender
from any of the communication service providers that are offering
service in that market.
Q3 Lord James of Blackheath:
Asked in a state of ignorance and for better understanding, I
am trying to get some examples of what constitutes a service company
in this particular context. Is Air France a service company, as
an airline, within the definitions you have been giving?
Mr Harbour: I am not sure, Lord James, whether
this is actually a particular issue as far as the Single Market
is concerned.
Q4 Lord James of Blackheath:
The reason I ask it is because I am trying to find an example
of a service company because the real question that would come
behind it is as to what impact all this will have on the rules
concerning the non-allowance of financial assistance to a service
company.
Mr Harbour: The provisions on state aids which
come under competition law would apply to any company whether
it was a service company or a manufacturing company. Since those
distinctions are being increasingly blurred these days it seems
to me it is actually related to the nature of the activity and
the competitive environment which is being delivered. I do not
think there is anything here that we have talked about that will
make a significant difference. Similarly it relates to my answer
on the question about Services of General Interest and essentially
they are defined by the Member States concerned. Some of them
may well deliver through the public sector and some they may contract
out to the private sector, but that will be their responsibility.
Water, for example, is clearly a Service of General Interest;
in this country it is delivered through private companies under
an independent regulator and in other countries it is delivered
by national or regional water companies that may well come under
the control of the local authorities concerned, so there will
be very different ownership models within that structure.
Q5 Lord James of Blackheath:
The thrust of my concern is that I suspect from what I read and
hear there is a very arbitrary approach being taken by Europe
as to when it allows state aid and when it does not, which sometimes
appears to be completely contradictory from one jurisdiction to
another, from one national entity to another. Is anything happening
which is going to affect or resolve that or make it more consistent?
Mr Harbour: That is a bit outside my remit but
I will give you my personal views. Competition policy is not specifically
our area but what I would say is that the state aid rules, as
part of European competition policy—at a European level,
a Community level—I think that if Mrs Kroes, the Competition
Commissioner were here—I am sure she would be delighted
to give evidence to you—she would argue quite strongly that
they do apply them consistently and also that they have been toughening
up the criteria on state aid and in certain conspicuous sectors—transport
is an interesting one; my own background is in the motor industry—like
the motor industry which has hitherto been subject to quite a
lot of competitive bidding by countries in order to attract new
car plants that the Commission has dramatically tightened up on
that and the criteria for state aid are being quite significantly
tightened up and implemented pretty rigidly. I think you would
need to ask her about that but I think so far as the Treaty is
concerned my main concern would be whether the proposed change
around undistorted competition might affect that when it came
to a challenge to the Commission's state aid. What will happen
is that there will be a Court of Justice decision on a challenge
by a company or a government to a community state aid ruling.
Lord James of Blackheath: My Lord Chairman,
I am content with the answer as I have heard it today but I would
ask for guidance from the Chair and the secretariat to this Committee
as to whether we could have more information on this because I
think there is a question there that I have not entirely got to
fully, and certainly not to the understanding I would want to
have.
Chairman: Certainly. We will pursue this
after the Committee if we may and make sure that correct evidence
and advice is offered to the Committee. Can we now turn to some
colleagues?
Q6 Lord Powell of Bayswater:
On your point on undistorted competition—we have had some
discussion on this already—like you I feel a bit anxious
about the way this has got shuffled around. But I was also reading
the recent letter from the Director General of the Commission's
Legal Service which reminds us all that actually undistorted competition
never was an objective in the original Treaty, it was simply a
means of achieving objectives, and those means are now safeguarded
by the new protocol and therefore there is no substantial difference.
To a rational mind that is understandable but nevertheless may
not be how a European Court would interpret it. We have seen some
strange judgments in the European Court when it comes into this
area of competition. Also one has to think about the motives of
those who wanted removal of the reference to free and undistorted
competition. Do you really see this as a set back to the efforts
to have effective competition in Europe? Or do you think actually
it is just playing with words and shifting things around it will
all come out in the wash and all will be for the best?
Mr Harbour: I think it is a potential danger
which distinguished lawyers—I am not a lawyer, as you have
probably gathered—have pointed to how the absence of that
reference to undistorted competition (even as a tool it is not
referred to at all now) might affect a key judgment if the judgment,
for example, was balancing other issues like employment or the
social market side of the economy which is still of course firmly
written into the lead articles of the Treaty. I think that is
how I would put it. I do not see that it will be an immediate
set back but nevertheless we are dealing with an area where community
law and community law cases have in many cases have had a very
significant effect—the seminal cases have had a significant
effect—on how competition law is applied. It remains one
of the most important and powerful instruments in the creation
of an effective and operating Internal Market.
Q7 Lord Powell of Bayswater:
My worry would be that when free and undistorted competition was
originally encapsulated in the text of the Treaty we were in a
world which is moving generally in the direction of liberalising
and opening up markets. Now we seem to be entering a different
world where world trade organisation negotiations are faltering,
where countries are now imposing more protectionist measures.
I think there is a risk surely that the way these matters are
now provided for in the Treaty could actually encourage those
who would like to see more protectionism to pursue their course.
Perhaps you would agree that this is a move against a true Single
Market in which free and undistorted competition is allowed to
be the guiding principle.
Mr Harbour: I agree. I think that is the substance
of my argument as well but you put it rather more elegantly than
I did.
Q8 Chairman:
Can I ask a question about intellectual property? I know it is
not specifically the remit of your Committee in Brussels but this
Committee attaches some importance to the Treaty's statement on
intellectual property because it does seem to open up the prospect
of a single redress by an aggrieved party within Europe. At the
present time, although you can register your patent throughout
Europe in all Member States that are part of the current agreement,
there is no single point at which or to whom you can apply for
redress. I think this Committee might be pursuing this matter.
Could you just comment about the significance of the particular
article in the new Treaty?
Mr Harbour: I think it is an important step
forward in the tortuous route towards trying to get a properly
integrated patent system that will cross the whole of the European
Union. Indeed, as the Commission points out in the Single Market
document, this is absolutely crucial for an innovative economy
but, as your Lordships will know because I think you have done
previous reports on it, the original concept of a community patent
now seems to have foundered completely and we do not detect a
great deal of enthusiasm behind that at the moment within the
Council, although there are some people who are keen to revive
it. I think that the issue around jurisdiction of the patent system
which you raised is now the major stumbling block. I think we
have now moved to resolve the language difficulty which was a
previous stumbling block. I understand, for example, that the
French Government has recently signed the London Agreement within
the existing European Patent Convention which provides for a much
more restrictive range of translations when you apply for a patent
and I think that we are now moving towards finding a role for
national patent courts within an overall system of jurisdiction
and looking at the possibility of mutual recognition of judgments
and so on. Insofar as this addition to the Treaty provides a legal
base for doing that, I think it will be a major step forward.
I rather hope that over the next 12 months we may actually see
a rather more focused political priority given to this crucial
piece of legislation. It also relates very much to our role in
the global economy that I mentioned earlier as well because we
know that the US Congress now has a number of bills before it
to reform the US system. There are major issues about intellectual
property in our relations with China that we do need to resolve
and I am pleased that the Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, is now
putting intellectual property protection much higher up his negotiating
demands with China. I think with other emerging economies the
same thing will apply. It seems to me to be helpful in that context.
Q9 Lord Whitty:
I declare an interest as Chair of the National Consumer Council.
I apologise that I was not here for the beginning of your remarks,
however I was very interested in something you were saying towards
the end which related to the role of the Single Market/Internal
Market being, at the end of the day, for the benefit of the consumers
of Europe and contribution to their well-being. Given that that
is so and given that such terms were not perhaps so current when
the original treaties were spelt out and in a sense taking a slightly
different view from Lord Powell about whether free and undistorted
competition is a means or an end, the end of this is to improve
the lot of European consumers through competition but also through
other measures which may apply when competition is not of itself
sufficient; it may be necessary, but not sufficient. Do you regret
that the re-drafting of the treaties has not made this rather
more explicit in the terms of the Treaty itself, particularly
given that there are other initiatives coming out of the Commission
which do put the consumer as such more central to their concerns,
including the current re-assessment of the consumer acquis and
the documents the Commission came out with a couple of weeks ago?
You have a very valid point that we have to sell this to the citizens
of Europe as something they understand. At the moment much of
this is not understood and although words in a treaty or a constitution
do not make a huge amount of difference to the man in the supermarket,
they do make a bit and we seem to have missed an opportunity here.
Would you agree?
Mr Harbour: I am not sure I would because I
think that consumer protection is now ranked on an equal basis
with the Internal Market in the treaties. I think that is an important
step forward in actually highlighting consumer protection as being
one of those elements. Just looking through the provisions of
this Treaty I do not detect the fact that the Commission, in working
with us in co-decision with the Council, lacks powers under the
treaties to be able to implement or initiate and implement consumer
protection instruments. Certainly the Commission has not suggested
that it has any lack of powers in those areas. I am very familiar
with the work you talked about because that is squarely within
the remit of our Committee. I think the work that we are now doing
and is now underway to provide a common basis and a common set
of rights for consumers in key areas across the European Union
so that consumers feel more comfortable with shopping cross-border
and exercising their rights in the Single Market and companies
also know that they have one set of requirements to deal with,
for example in terms of dealing with unfair commercial practices
and contract terms (we will get the contract terms legislation
next year), those are important advances which have basically
been developed within the existing treaties. I think I am content
with the fact that consumer protection is now much more clearly
identified there and it may well be, as there have been if you
look at some of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice where
consumers have been cited also in competition cases, where it
has been averred that action needs to be taken or supported because
lack of competition is bad for consumers. I also note that the
Competition Directorate in the Commission, as one of Mrs Kroes's
initiatives, has actually taken on consumer policy specialists,
particularly in dealing with merger cases. Mrs Kroes has started
coming to our Committee as well; this is a new initiative that
we have taken to invite her to come and talk to our Committee
because she believes that much of their work is very central to
consumers' interests.
Q10 Chairman:
Some of us will shortly be going to take evidence from Commissioner
McCreevy. Your Committee has produced a report on the Commission's
internal review ahead of us. Bearing that in mind and bearing
what has happened recently in terms of statements by the commissioners
responsible for energy, telecommunications and financial services,
are there any particular issues that you think we should take
up with the Commissioner?
Mr Harbour: I think there is quite a long list
so I will try to be fairly brief. To set the context, our Committee
has not yet actually done a report on the Single Market in the
21st Century. What we did do was to produce our own strategy report
in the summer which my colleague Jacques Toubon was a rapporteur
for which was actually voted on by us in September (I am sure
you had a copy) which set out our views about what should be in
a Single Market for the 21st Century communication. I think we
have been gratified that quite a lot of our ideas have already
found their way in there. The second point that I would make is
that one of the really important things about the Single Market
of the 21st Century document is that it is not exclusively a document
produced by Mr McCreevy or the Directors-General for the Internal
Market. The Single Market of the 21st Century document has actually
been produced by the Secretary General of the Commission reporting
to the President, Jose Manuel Barroso, because it is an all-embracing
document. Essentially the Single Market operates in so many areas
and this is a true integrating document showing the importance
of market and competitive activity across the whole spread of
activities. In relation to Charlie McCreevy's areas I think some
of the things I talked about; about the tools for monitoring the
Internal Market which he is responsible for managing; his view
about progress in implementing the Services Directive and how
that is proceeding; issues relating to public procurement instruments
where we are awaiting some additional provisions to clarify some
issues, particularly around concessions in certain areas, concession
instruments, public/private partnerships and his view about the
enforcement of those; our mutual recognition of professional qualifications
where our reform of that is now being implemented and I think
this is going to become more and more important; also patents
and intellectual property for which he is directly responsible.
I think you have probably got a reasonable agenda there. If I
were really daring I would suggest you also raise with him the
issue about gambling in the Internal Market because, as the Irish
Commissioner he is very interested in that but I know that he
regards this as somewhat of a delicate and sensitive area but
I think if you were ambitious you might also mention that as well.
Chairman: We will try our Irish luck.
Mr Harbour, thank you very much indeed. This part of the evidence
session is now closed and we will move almost directly to the
second part. Thank you very much.
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