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European Commission

Indeed I can. Although this is a very deep and important subject, the Commission sums it up by saying:"““Removing unnecessary administrative burdens put on businesses will be forcefully pursued.””" If anyone has gone to engage in debate with the other members of the European Union, they will know that, as a country, we have taken on board the Lisbon agenda very strongly. We have gone for liberated markets, including in labour. Some would say that that flexibility has helped to generate jobs, so that we have more people in employment in the UK than we have ever had on record. Unfortunately, we see a growth in the EU of what has become known as economic patriotism; it used to be called protectionism. Even as we have signed up early to some directives, so other countries are now pushing them back. The one that my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Kelvin Hopkins) hears me talk about quite a lot is the postal directive. We have liberated our postal markets, but the date for the liberalisation of the whole postal market in Europe, which should have been 2009, has now been pushed back to 2011, with some countries calling for a derogation until 2013. Therefore, access to the postal markets will not be available to UK firms in the way that it is available to firms from other parts of the EU. There are many other examples of such delay. The unbundling of energy markets, with the idea of breaking up the generators of energy from the people who distribute and sell energy, is something that we have already done, but the idea has not been warmly welcomed, let us say, by other countries. I will not go into great detail about it, but I received an excellent document from the City of London corporation called, ““Delivering a competitive EU single market for the 21st century””. It is very well drafted and contains many ideas that we will hopefully take up as a UK Government; perhaps it will be quoted at length as a source of inspiration for Opposition Members. It outlines a very important way of thinking about the future. If there is a new European Commission and a new European Parliament, I hope that they will be more in favour of the Lisbon agenda and less opposed to it; unfortunately, opposition to the Lisbon agenda has been signalled by some at the moment. The other measures being emphasised are the EU cohesion programmes. To quote the Commission in the annual policy strategy document, those programmes will"““ensure a major source of investment at regional level to implement the Lisbon strategy. European social partners' contribution to the Lisbon agenda will also be geared up... The Commission wishes to focus on activities in the area of support for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), building in particular on the forthcoming European Small Business Act… The European Institute for Innovation and Technology””—" will enter—"““its first full year of operation… A key follow-up to the 2007 Single Market Review will be an initiative on shared partnerships between the Commission and Member States to apply and enforce Single Market law, clarifying the respective roles of the Commission and Member States and their shared responsibilities in making the Single Market work.””" As we all know, 2009 will be an important year to take forward work on energy and climate change. We had a debate last week on the proposal for renewable energy. Our position as a Government is to look for more flexibility in the mandatory targets that have been set by the EU. For example, the Minister for Energy has said that it will cost £5 billion per annum to reach the target of 15 per cent. renewables by 2020. In this particular economic climate, that figure must be a cause for concern. I therefore hope that the figure will be negotiable when the annual strategy policy document turns into the work programme. Bringing the energy and climate change package to the implementation phase will be a priority. The package will include implementing the revised emissions trading scheme; enacting new legislation on renewables, as I have mentioned; and putting into effect energy efficiency action plans and developing low-carbon technologies. I hope that we all aspire to seeing those measures implemented. At this early stage in the annual policy strategy document, I hope that hon. Members will engage with the implementation process through Select Committees and their own special interests. The Commission states that a key priority will be to make a success of the Galileo project, which will now be managed by the Commission. There was great controversy, and as a Committee we joined in with that controversy. We were not necessarily convinced that Galileo, as it was originally structured, would be capable of functioning as a commercial activity, and so it turned out; it has now been taken on by the Commission, with some regret on some parts and with some welcome on other parts. Our late colleague, Gwyneth Dunwoody, was very resistant to the idea that the Commission should take on the Galileo project. A number of Opposition Members argued that we have the global positioning system from the USA, which was free to use, and therefore that we did not need a European system. However, we have Galileo, and now we must deal with the question of Galileo, under what is called the Galileo Commission project. There will also be work on the green transport package. There is a great deal of controversy about how green transport is achieved. In the European Parliament recently, a motion was carried that rejected the idea of biofuels being part of the package, because of the current effect of biofuels on food and food prices. The APS also mentions the common immigration policy, which will remain a fundamental priority for the Commission and a number of key actions in that field are envisaged. Among others, those actions include the adoption of proposals on legal migration; the further development of Frontex; and work towards completion of the common European asylum system. Of course, the UK has a choice of opting into or out of all those actions, and that will prompt debate in the House every time these issues come up for discussion.