European Scrutiny Committee Meeting Summary: 3 December 2014

The Committee considered the following documents:

The UK’s 2014 block opt-out decision

This week we consider two draft Council Decisions relevant to the UK block opt-out decision, which we considered on 5 November. The first concerns the financial consequences of the block opt-out.  It would require the UK to repay around €1.5 million should it decides not to rejoin the Prüm package by the end of 2015. The second concerns consequential and transitional arrangements.  It seeks to avoid the risk of a legal or operational gap by extending the application of the 35 measures that the UK is seeking to rejoin until 7 December 2014. As we made clear to the Home and Justice Secretaries, we were not willing to be bounced into clearing these Decisions at our meeting last week, given their legal and political importance and the Government’s delay in responding to questions we raised on 5 November. As both Decisions were adopted in Council on 27 November, we consider that retaining them under scrutiny would serve no useful purpose, but we ask the Government to explain whether it has overridden our scrutiny reserve.

Draft Criminal Justice and Data Protection Regulations

We do not accept the Government’s  explanation for the delay in laying before Parliament the draft Criminal Justice and Data Protection (Protocol No. 36) Regulations, which transpose into UK law 10 of the 35 measures the UK is rejoining, and for the haste with which Parliament was asked to consider these Regulations. We see no good reason why consideration by Parliament could not have commenced sooner, based on the outcome of technical level discussions with the Commission and the Council reached in June.  Nor do we consider it credible for the Government to assert that it had to legislate in this way to mitigate the risk that the Commission might bring infraction proceedings against the UK on 1 December. In our view, this risk would be very small indeed.

We note the view of the Home and Justice Secretaries that a vote on the draft Regulations on 10 November constituted a vote on the entire package of 35 measures which the Government is rejoining. On this point, the Hansard record of the debate speaks for itself.

It appears that a scrutiny override in relation to a Council Decision on the Schengen measures the UK has rejoined — which has not yet been deposited for scrutiny — is inevitable, given the mis-handling of the scrutiny process by the Government. If this is indeed the case, we will expect the Home and Justice Secretaries to appear before us to explain why they have failed to meet their scrutiny obligations to Parliament.

Financial management

We also consider the European Court of Auditors’ 2013 Audit Reports on the General Budget and the European Development Fund. These reports, which are the Court of Auditor’s main Annual Reports, have revealed serious inadequacies in implementation of EU expenditure, and it has therefore become customary that we recommend these reports for debate. We do so again this year, as although the 2013 reports affirm the reliability of the accounts, the Statements of Assurance are qualified.  We recommend that they are debated in European Committee B alongside the Commission’s anti-fraud report, which we have previously recommended for debate. We suggest that Members could focus in particular on Government efforts to improve EU financial management. We remind the Government that it of the utmost importance that this debate should take place before the ECOFIN Council in February 2015, when it is probable the Council will be considering its recommendation to the European Parliament for the discharge of the 2013 financial budget.

Other documents

We are also reporting on documents relating to:

• Cabinet Office: International Procurement; Public Procurement in the EU
• Environment, Food and Rural Affairs/International Development: The EU and the post-2015 development agenda
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office: EU Action to support Afghan civilian policing and Rule of Law post-2014; Common Security and Defence Policy: Policing in Afghanistan; EU and Georgia: EU monitoring mission; Restrictive measures against Iran; EU civilian CSDP mission in Ukraine: launch and status of mission;
• International Development: Food and Agriculture Organisation; Economic Partnership Agreement with the West African region
• Treasury: Taxation; Financial services: payment services

The Committee’s 23rd Report of Session 2014-15, covering the Europol, was published on Thursday 27 November. The Committee’s 22nd Report of Session 2014-15 will be published soon, covering: EU Budget 2014; Regulation of medical devices; Package and assisted travel arrangements; Access to published works for the visually impaired; Insolvency proceedings; Kyoto Protocol: emissions reduction targets; Atmospheric emissions from medium combustion plants; Free movement and public documents; The EU Operations Centre and the Horn of Africa; Iran Sanctions; An EU maritime security strategy; European security and defence: following up the December 2013 European Defence Council; Data Protection in the EU; EU regulation of novel foods; Intelligent transport systems; Safety standards for fishermen; Cableway installations; Financial services: benchmarks; Financial services: bank recovery and resolution; Taxation; and Integrating labour markets.

Further information

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