§ Mr. PageTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement about the proposal 767W for financial support, under the European Community budget, for a specific industrial development programme for Portugal.
§ Mr. AtkinsThe European Council in Brussels in February agreed to the provision of 500 mecu (about £340 million) to contribute towards the implementation of a special industrial development programme for Portugal (PEDIP).
The funding, which is distinct from support from the structural funds and Community loans, will last for five years to 1992 and will be used to contribute to financing productive investments and to the improvement of basic infrastructure, industrial efficiency and vocational training.
While supporting the proposal in principle, the Government had to object to one of the proposed legal bases cited for it, namely the use of article 128, which the Commission insisted was necessary to cover the vocational training elements of the programme.
Consideration of the proposal seemed deadlocked on this point, but shortly before the Foreign Affairs Council on 14 June, all other member states joined in objecting to the inclusion of article 128. As a result of this there was no further reason for the United Kingdom to delay adoption of the regulation.
Unfortunately this unexpectedly early agreement to the text of the proposal, which we had otherwise been unable to accept, gave us insufficient time to give early warning to the Select Committee on European Legislation. I therefore wrote to the Chairman of the Committee to explain this unexpected advance and to request that it considers the proposal only at the point when it was likely to be adopted. I would therefore wish to restate my apologies that it had not been possible for the House to undertake and complete scrutiny of the proposal before it was adopted.