European Scrutiny Committee Meeting Summary: 17 December 2014

The Committee considered the following documents:

EU General Budgets for 2014 and 2015

Last week we considered the revised Draft Budget for 2015 which had been presented by Commission following the failure of the European Parliament and Council to reach agreement on the original Budget proposal. We noted that, in effect, this revised proposal had been agreed by the Council, but we observed that we had little information about how the agreement of the 2015 EU General Budget related to resolution of the disagreement between the Council and the European Parliament on a number of Draft Amending Budgets for the 2014 EU General Budget. We therefore asked the Government to provide us with a full explanation of developments on these budgetary matters.

The Minister has now provided some further information. He explains however that he will write to us in the New Year to address the more detailed questions we have posed – a letter we very much look forward to receiving. Having reviewed the information that he has provided, we ask for further clarification and information on a number of points – including on the Government’s statement that the final outcome on the 2014 EU General Budget is fiscally neutral. Once we have received this information, we will consider how to take forward our scrutiny of all of the issues.

European Semester

The European Semester is an EU-level framework for coordinating and assessing Member States’ structural reforms and fiscal/budgetary policy and for monitoring and addressing macroeconomic imbalances. The semester cycle begins with an Annual Growth Survey by the Commission, which we consider this week, alongside the draft Joint Employment Report and the European Economic Forecast. The Government gives us a relatively welcoming assessment of all three documents, noting some particularly positive comments on the UK system. We recommend these documents for debate in European Committee B, together with the Alert Mechanism Report, which we expect to consider in our first meeting of the New Year. The debate should take place before the relevant functional Councils consider the documents in preparation for the March 2015 European Council.

Ukraine and Russia: EU restrictive measures

This week we consider two new sets of EU restrictive measures in relation to Ukraine and Russia. Although we clear them from scrutiny, we tag the relevant chapters of our Report to the debate that we have previously recommended on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement. Last month the Minister asked us to rescind that recommendation as a Backbench Business debate had been scheduled on the floor of the House. We declined to do so.  The Minister now tells us that a debate in European Committee is the most appropriate option, and that he has asked his officials to arrange this. We do not agree: we recommend a debate on the floor of the House after serious consideration and with good reason, and it is not for the Minister to contradict the Committee’s view and unilaterally determine the appropriate forum for the debate.

The Telecommunications Single Market

This package, which seeks to establish a Single Telecoms Market, was deposited last year and we have retained it under scrutiny since then. Last month the Minister reported that the Presidency intended to seek agreement on a General Approach for this proposal at the November Telecoms Council. We agreed to grant a scrutiny waiver, on the understanding that the Minister would not agree to a General Approach that fell outside of the UK’s negotiating mandate, and provided that he continued to update us with an appropriate level of detail. The Minister now explains that the Council decided to refer the proposal back to Working Group level for further development, with the two remaining Working Groups under the Italian Presidency focussing on net neutrality and mobile roaming. He tells us that it “very much remains” his ambition that an agreement around a simplified Regulation containing action on mobile roaming is reached as soon as possible. We look forward to receiving an update in the New Year, and remind the Minister that the scrutiny waiver that we previously granted only applied to the 27 November 2014 Telecoms Council and that, should the Minister again find himself in that position, he will need to seek our agreement before voting in Council. For now, we retain the documents under scrutiny.

Other documents

We are also reporting on documents relating to:

• Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Animal health law;
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office: European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plans with Lebanon, Morocco, Jordon and Tunisia; EU-Turkmenistan relations;
• HMRC: Customs: mutual assistance;
• Home Office: Europol; The functioning of the Schengen area;
• Transport: Test procedures for vehicle emissions;
• Treasury: Eurozone membership; Investment plan for Europe; Financial services: resilience of credit institutions

The Committee’s 26th Report of Session 2014-15, covering the EU General Budget 2015, was published on Thursday 11 December. The Committee’s 25th Report of Session 2014-15 will be published soon, covering: The UK’s block opt-out; Financial services: occupational pension funds; Single-member private limited liability companies; Accession of Kazakhstan to the World Trade Organisation; European Defence Agency; Restrictive measures against Iran: nuclear issues; Restrictive measures against Zimbabwe; EU restrictive measures against the Syrian regime; Integrated Border Management Assistance Mission in Libya; Rules of procedure of the General Court; Common Security and Defence Policy: EULEX Kosovo: allegations of corruption; EU support for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in Syria; Forced labour; Seafarers; Carbon dioxide emissions from maritime transport; Working time: inland waterway transport; Single European Sky; EU staff pensions; Value added taxation; Money laundering and terrorist financing.

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