SP Paper 542 (Web Only)
EU/S4/14/R3
3rd Report, 2014 (Session 4)
Annual report 2013-14
Remit and membership
Remit:
The remit of the European and External Relations Committee is to consider and report on-
(a) proposals for European Union legislation;
(b) the implementation of European Communities and European Union legislation;
(c) any European Communities or European Union issue;
(d) the development and implementation of the Scottish Administration’s links with countries and territories outside Scotland, the European Union (and its institutions) and other international organisations; and
(e) co-ordination of the international activities of the Scottish Administration.
(Standing Orders of the Scottish Parliament, Rule 6.8)
Membership:
Clare Adamson
Roderick Campbell
Willie Coffey
Helen Eadie (1 Jun 2011 – 9 Nov 2013)
Patricia Fergusson (19 December 2013-25 February 2014
Hanzala Malik (Deputy Convener)
Jamie McGrigor
Christina McKelvie (Convener)
Alex Rowley (25 February 2014-
Committee Clerking Team:
Senior Assistant Clerk
Katy Orr
Assistant Clerks
Clare O'Neill
Jenny Goldsmith
Committee Assistants
Carol Mitchell
Eileen Martin
Annual report 2013-14
The Committee reports to the Parliament as follows—
Introduction
1. This report covers the work of the European and External Relations Committee during the Parliamentary year from 11 May 2013 to 10 May 2014.
Inquiries and reports
Scottish Government’s proposals on an independent Scotland’s membership of the European Union
2. In December 2013, the Committee took evidence on the Scottish Government’s White Paper on independence on issues relating to its remit. The Committee then launched a major inquiry in January 2014 on the Scottish Government’s proposals on an independent Scotland’s membership of the EU. The Committee held a number of evidence sessions on the proposals contained in the White Paper with academics, lawyers, practitioners and politicians and received written responses to its call for views.
3. The Committee’s inquiry focussed on a three key of areas: Scotland in the European Union; the road to membership and Scotland’s representation in the European Union; and small states within the European Union. The Committee expects to publish its findings prior to the summer recess in 2014.
European Union Structural and Investment (ESI) Funds
4. Building on previous years’ work, the Committee agreed to continue its work on EU funding, having previously scrutinised EU Structural Funds for the period up to 2013. This year the Committee focussed on the preparations for the new 2014-2020 programming period for the ESI funds. As part of this scrutiny, the Committee took evidence from European Commission officials in October 2013 on the new regulatory framework for the ESI Funds. It also held a roundtable session with key Scottish stakeholders and a Scottish Government official in November 2013 on the preparations in Scotland for the funding framework.
5. The Committee considered the on-going discussions on the Multiannual Financial Framework for 2014-20 (MFF) and the regulatory package for the ESI Funds which, in essence, sets out the conditions and processes upon which partners within Members States will receive funding in line with the EU funded programmes. Concerns had been raised regarding the potential for delays in the agreement of the Partnership Agreement and the operational programmes and the extent to which this could have a detrimental impact upon the initiation of the programmes in Scotland. The Committee incorporated its conclusions and recommendations on this work into a letter to the Deputy First Minister in December 2013.1 The Committee will continue to monitor developments in this area closely throughout the coming year and plans to undertake fact-finding visits at an appropriate time on the implementation of EU funded programmes across Scotland.
Scottish Government’s draft budget
6. As part of the annual budget process, the Committee scrutinised the Scottish Government’s proposals for the Europe and External Affairs (EEA) portfolio in the Draft Budget 2014-15.
7. In its report on the Draft Budget 2014-15, the Committee recognised the need for greater flexibility in the EEA portfolio budget and that this is linked to the level of underspend and miscellaneous transfers appearing within this portfolio. The Committee welcomed the efforts made to improve the transparency of the draft budget and will continue to monitor this in future years. The Committee welcomed the Scottish Government’s continued commitment to international development spending and also recognised the work being done to co-ordinate the International Relations budget in the EEA portfolio with the Scottish Government’s wider work on climate change.
Scottish Government’s Country Plan for China and International Framework
8. The Committee completed its inquiry into the Scottish Government’s Country Plan for China and International Framework. In June 2013, the Committee published its findings2 and made a number of recommendations for the Scottish Government and Scottish Development International, and agreed to be kept updated on matters related to the development of Scotland’s relationship with China.
Foreign language learning in primary schools
9. Also in June 2013, the Committee published its findings on its inquiry on foreign language learning in primary schools. The report 3was published after a comprehensive three-phase inquiry involving primary school visits, oral evidence sessions and finally, a major conference held in May 2013 in the parliament, which was organised to hear the views of stakeholders on the evidence considered by the Committee and to help develop report recommendations. The Committee concluded its work by welcoming the Scottish Government’s proposals relating to the EU 1 + 2 initiative, which aims to enable all young people to learn two languages from primary one onwards, and made a number of recommendations and conclusions around funding, skills and resources and the importance of learning languages in schools.
Keynote speaker - Mr Jan Truszczynski, Director General for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, European Commission
EU Presidency evidence sessions
10. The Committee held an evidence session in October 2013 with the Lithuanian Ambassador to the UK on Lithuania’s priorities for its Presidency of the Council of the European Union and their relevance to Scotland. Also in October 2013, the Committee took evidence from the Croatian Ambassador on Croatia’s accession to the EU and the processes involved. In March 2014, the Greek Ambassador to the UK gave evidence to the Committee in on its EU Presidency priorities. The Committee has agreed to hold evidence sessions with the Ambassador of the Member State holding the new Presidency on a six-monthly basis on their priorities.
Her Excellency, Asta Skaisgiryté LiauškienÄ—, Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania with the Committee.
His Excellency, Dr Ivan Grdešić, Ambassador of Croatia to the United Kingdom with the Convener and Members of the European and External Relations Committee.
His Excellency, Mr Konstantinos Bikas, Ambassador of the Hellenic Republic to the United Kingdom, with the European and External Relations Committee.
Scottish Government on EU issues
11. A key aspect of the Committee’s role is to scrutinise the Scottish Government’s engagement on EU issues. The Committee therefore sought to complement the EU Presidency sessions by taking evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs on the current Presidency priorities and how they relate to Scottish Government priorities as set out in the Scottish Government’s Action Plan on European Engagement.
12. The Committee receives reports every six months from the Scottish Government on the Horizon 2020 programme for research and innovation, an area of major focus in previous years and of continuing interest for this Committee. The Committee also considers updates every six months on the transposition of EU documents, ensuring effective scrutiny of the Scottish Government’s progress in transposing EU directives within the required timescale and providing the opportunity to raise questions with the Scottish Government if there is a delay in transposition.
Anti-trafficking
13. Anti-trafficking has been an on-going area of interest to the Committee and it agreed to follow developments in relation to this issue in the future. In September 2013, the Committee took evidence from the EU Anti-trafficking Coordinator, Myria Vassiliadou, and agreed that it would return to this issue once the European Commission’s report on the transposition of the Anti-Trafficking Directive is published in 2015.
14. In addition, the Committee wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice seeking further information on the Scottish Government’s involvement with the UK Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group (IDMG) on Human Trafficking and the extent to which the latter’s First Annual Report assesses the trends in the trafficking of humans and measures the results of anti-trafficking actions in relation to Scotland. The Committee also sought further information in relation to the UK Government’s intention to legislate in this area and the potential implications for Scotland. The Scottish Government responded to the Committee on both of these issues and the Committee will continue to keep a watching brief on these issues and, in particular, the Scottish Government’s input to the UK Government’s Modern Slavery Bill to ensure Scottish interests are taken into account during the development of the Bill.
Engagement and innovation
15. As stated, in January 2013 the Committee launched an inquiry into the Scottish Government’s proposals for an independent Scotland’s membership of the European Union. As part of its approach to evidence gathering, it produced a video and leaflet to publicise its call for evidence. In addition, the Committee produced a video of the evidence emerging from the sessions and sought stakeholders’ views on the evidence heard in advance of the final sessions with UK and Scottish Government Ministers.
16. The Committee enhanced its use of social media by launching its own Twitter feed and, as a result, has significantly increased its direct engagement with young people and those not previously engaged in the work of the Committee. This innovative approach to stakeholder engagement contributed to widespread coverage of the Committee’s evidence sessions in the press, with stakeholders actively disseminating transcripts of EERC meetings via Twitter.
Scottish Parliament European Union strategy
17. This year, the Committee agreed to adopt a more streamlined approach to consideration of EU engagement and scrutiny whereby relevant committees were asked to report on both their engagement and scrutiny over the last year and their scrutiny priorities for the coming year. This provided the opportunity for Members to discuss these issues very comprehensively in the Committee’s annual Chamber debate on the Scottish Parliament’s committees’ EU priorities.
18. In the past, committees identified their priorities on the basis of the European Commission’s work programme (CWP) for the forthcoming year. This year, the Committee has sought to broaden the approach by inviting relevant committees to also consider the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Scottish Government’s Action Plan on European Engagement.
19. This new approach was welcomed by committees during this year’s annual EERC debate on the report in February 2014.
Subordinate legislation
20. The Committee considered two negative instruments which both related to EU regulation amendments required on the accession of Croatia to the EU and agreed not to make any recommendations on these instruments.
Equalities
21. The Committee continued to mainstream equalities issues throughout the Parliamentary year as part of its ongoing work. This was highlighted particularly in the Committee’s foreign languages in schools inquiry where the Committee made recommendations to the Scottish Government regarding students requiring additional support needs and tuition in British Sign Language.
Meetings
22. During the reporting period, the Committee met 26 times and 18 meetings were held partly in private and two wholly in private. 36 items were taken in private, 13 to consider evidence sessions, 11 to consider draft reports, six for consideration of approaches to inquiries, four to consider the Committee’s work programme and two to consider candidates for the post of Adviser. All meetings were held in Edinburgh.
Any links to external websites in this report were working correctly at the time of publication. However, the Scottish Parliament cannot accept responsibility for content on external websites.
Footnotes:
1 Letter from the Convener to the Scottish Government, 6 December 2013. Available at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_EuropeanandExternalRelationsCommittee/Inquiries/2013_12_06_Convener_-_DFM_-_structural_funds.pdf [accessed January 2014].
2 European and External Relations Committee 4th Report, 2013 (Session 4): Report on the Scottish Government's Country Plan for China and International Framework. SP Paper 363.Available at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_EuropeanandExternalRelationsCommittee/Reports/eur-13-04w.pdf
3European and External Relations Committee 3rd Report, 2013 (Session 4) Foreign language learning in primary schools. SP Paper 361.Available at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_EuropeanandExternalRelationsCommittee/Reports/Foreign_language_learning_in_primary_schools_-_Inquiry_report.pdf
Produced and published in Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh, EH99 1SP by APS Group Scotland, 21 Tennant Street, Edinburgh EH6 5NA
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