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eu scrutiny, ports, organic food production

Meeting summary: 10 September 2014

11 September 2014

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The European Scrutiny Committee met on Wednesday 10 September.

The Committee considered the following documents:

Ports

Last week we considered the draft Regulation on Ports, and reiterated our recommendation that the document be debated on the floor of the House. This was following the adjournment of European Committee A last week, in which the document was due to be debated, following points of order from Members about the lack of availability of the latest Council working group version of the draft Regulation.

This week we revisit the document as the Government has now given us the latest version. We are however unable to report its contents, as it is classified as limité. We are disappointed that the Government is continuing its refusal to have this matter debated on the floor of the House. Following our visit to Rome earlier this week, we are now less certain that Council consideration of this matter will continue to be unduly rushed, as we gained the impression that the Italian presidency may not expect consideration of the proposal to be concluded during its term. We remind the Government that the document remains under scrutiny and that it would be wholly inappropriate in this case for it to override the Scrutiny Reserve Resolution.

Organic food production

The current requirements that must be met in order for agricultural products and foodstuffs to be regarded as organic are set out in an existing Council Regulation. This week we consider a draft Regulation which aims to take organic production back to its core principles by removing the exemptions and derogations contained in the current Regulation. We also considered a Commission Action Plan which is intended to ensure a smooth transition to the new framework. When we first considered these proposals in April 2014, we felt that the issues raised were perhaps not sufficiently important enough to warrant further consideration by the House. We did however hold the documents under scrutiny pending further information from the discussions which the Government had planned with the industry and others. These discussions appear to have highlighted a number of significant concerns and the Government is now describing the proposals as "largely negative" for UK producers and consumers. In light of this, we recommend the documents for debate in European Committee A.

EU General Budget 2015: Draft Budget

On 2 July and 3 September 2014 we recommended that a number of documents relating to the EU Budget be debated in European Committee B. The Government has now explained to us that the Council has formally agreed its position on the 2015 Draft Budget and has called for a budget of €140.0 billion (£112.2 billion) in payment appropriations. We emphasise that we hope that the Government will explain further in the debate in European Committee B more about which parts of the draft budget it has not managed to limit as much as it would have liked. We remind the Government that this debate must take place as soon as is practically possible, and that in any case it should take place before the European Parliament’s first reading of the Draft Budget.

Data Protection in the EU and EU-US Data Exchange

This week we consider a number of instruments relating to data protection and the flow of data between the EU and the US. We last considered these documents in April 2014 and have kept them under scrutiny. The Secretary for State for Justice has written to us to inform us of the latest developments in relation to the main General Data Protection proposal. He informs us that a conditional agreement of a partial general approach on this document has been reached and we share his concern about the prematurity of this agreement. The Minister offers little information about the substance of this provisional agreement and we request further information from him regarding this. We keep all of these documents under scrutiny and draw the relevant chapter of our report to the attention of the Justice Committee. 

Other documents

We are also reporting on documents relating to:

  • Business, Innovation and Skills: Undeclared work; Network Information Security across the EU
  • Foreign and Commonwealth Office: EU civilian CSDP mission in Ukraine; EU Lebanon and EU-Tunisia relations; European Neighbourhood Policy; EU Border Assistance Mission for the Rafah Crossing Point (EUBAM Rafah)
  • Home Office: EU visa policy; Relocation of the European Police College
  • International Development: EU development and external assistance policies and their implementation in 2013
  • Transport: Safety standards for fishermen; Road Safety

Report

The Committee’s 9th Report of Session 2014-15 will be published shortly, covering:

  • Cooperation to strengthen cross-border consumer protection
  • Resource efficiency in the building sector
  • EU merger control
  • Application of geographical indication protection to non-agricultural products
  • Gender balance on corporate boards
  • unfair trading practices in the food supply chain
  • Developing an EU Urban Agenda
  • Communication on Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in the EU
  • Communication on Protection of Intellectual Property Rights in Third Countries
  • Insolvency proceedings
  • EU legislation on waste
  • The Telecommunications Single Market
  • Towards a data-driven economy in Europe
  • Energy efficiency and security: 2030
  • The EU and the post-2015 development agenda
  • Green Action Plan for small and medium sized enterprise
  • The post 2015 Hyogo Framework for Action: Managing risks to achieve resilience
  • The European External Action Service
  • EU restrictive measures against the Syrian regime
  • Restrictive measures against Iran: nuclear issues
  • International Code of Conduct on Outer Space Activities
  • EU restrictive measures: South Sudan
  • EU-Algeria Relations
  • Common Security and Defence Policy: EULEX Kosovo
  • CSFP: EU support for security sector reform in the Democratic republic of Congo
  • European Central Bank: statistics
  • European Globalisation Adjustment Fund
  • Protecting the EU’s financial interests
  • Financial management; Europol
  • EU Strategy on Trafficking in Human Beings
  • Unaccompanied minors seeking asylum
  • The UK’s 2014 block-opt out decision
  • European Defence: implementation road map
  • EU humanitarian assistance
  • Development Education and Awareness Raising in Europe
  • Procedural safeguards for children suspected or accused in criminal proceedings
  • Detention, supervision and previous convictions of EU citizens
  • EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
  • Working time: inland waterway transport; An EU Strategic Framework on Health and Safety at Work
  • European aid to the most deprived

Further information