Meeting Summary: 14 May 2014

The Committee considered the following documents:

The EU and Georgia: the EU and Moldova

For debate in European Committee B

We first scrutinised these draft Council Decisions on the signing and provisional application and conclusion of Association Agreements between the EU and Georgia in April, when we outlined a range of legal uncertainties raised by the Minister, including whether the UK Government could secure a Title V justice and home affairs legal base which would then give rise to a UK opt-in decision, and posed questions similar to those raised by earlier such agreements. Given the current situation in Ukraine, we also asked the Government’s view of the wisdom of pursuing a similar "reform" agenda through these Association Agreements and to clarify a number of elements of the Agreements. We also asked for an assurance that, as with Ukraine, the provisions on Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) were in line with other third state partnerships. The Minister’s recent letter responds to a number, but not all, of the points raised in our report. We note the Minister’s assessment that signature and provisional application of these agreements is a “high priority” in the current political situation and that these Decisions are due to be adopted at the 23 June Foreign Affairs Council. Given the upcoming end of the parliamentary session, and the time the Government says it requires to organise a debate, we have no choice but to recommend the debate now, so that it may take place before the Council. We hope that the Minister will provide these further clarifications over the course of the debate, specifically relating the provisional application of the CSDP content, and ask him to provide the House with the final versions of these Decisions prior to the debate.

Relocation of the European Police College (CEPOL)

The Committee has reported on the draft Regulation that provides for the relocation of CEPOL from Bramshill in Hampshire to Budapest later this year on several occasions. As the proposal is subject to the UK’s justice and home affairs opt-in, in addition to asking the Government to provide information on a number of points, we recommended that the opt-in decision be debated in European Committee. The debate took place more than six weeks after the Government had notified the Committee of its decision to opt-in and the Government has still to give a satisfactory reason for the delay or to respond to our question on what proportion of the relocation costs the Minister anticipates will fall to the UK. The Regulation was adopted by the Council on 6 May; the Minister’s letter of that date failed to give any indication of the Minister’s voting intentions. We continue to hold this text under scrutiny and ask the Minister to explain how the UK voted, whether this entailed a breach of the scrutiny reserve and to confirm how much the UK will be expected to contribute to relocation costs.

Financial services: payment services

The purpose of the draft Directive on payment services in the internal market (PSD II) and the draft Regulation on interchange fees for card based transactions, as set out in our previous reports, is to achieve a fully integrated EU market for card, internet and mobile payments. The Committee last considered these proposals in January, when we asked the Government to explain what precise improvements to these proposals it intended to seek to make them acceptable to the UK. We also reported comments from stakeholders suggesting that it could have adverse impacts on consumers and SMEs; we asked to have the Government’s views on these comments. We now scrutinise the documents again, alongside two European Central Bank Opinions. One Opinion expresses support, with some caveats, for the draft Regulation as reducing market fragmentation across the EU and having a strong impact on competition. The other strongly supports the PSD II proposal but comments on areas where it could be improved. The Minister has now written to set out the improvements the Government is seeking and to respond to the representations made to the Committee.  On the latter, it says that it continues to be supportive of an EU-wide cap on interchange fees but would like the Commission to bring the review period forward in order to thoroughly test the impact of the Regulation. The Minister also says that the Government is largely supportive of the points made by the European Central Bank. We continue to hold the documents under scrutiny and look forward to hearing about progress on the negotiations, and we have asked for the Minister’s opinion on further representations received.

Other documents reported

We are also reporting on documents relating to:

• Business, Innovation and Skills: Business failure and insolvency;
• Cabinet Office: Implementing the Solidarity Clause; 
• Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Promotion of agricultural products;
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office: The EU and the Gulf of Guinea; Integrated Border Managements Assistance Mission in Libya; Rules of Procedure of the General Court; EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo;
• HM Treasury: Financial services: occupational pension funds; Money laundering and terrorist financing;
• Home Office: Establishing the EU’s position within the International Labour Organisation; EU visa policy;
• Transport: Road transport: dimensions and weights.

The Committee’s Forty-eighth Report and Forty-ninth Report have been published, covering: Undeclared work; Rule of Law in EU Member States; Diplomatic and consular protection of EU citizens in third countries; The post 215 Hyogo Framework for Action: managing risks to achieve resilience; Reliability of checks on agricultural expenditure; EU accession to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); Citizens’ dialogues; Restrictive measures against the regime in Myanmar/Burma; European Neighbourhood Policy; Customs: mutual assistance; Financial management: audit; Civil aviation: passenger protection; Protection of trade secrets; Cableway installations.

• European Scrutiny Committee publications