§ Mr. HoodTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, pursuant to the answer of 10 April 2002,Official Report, column 379W, on the Transport and Telecommunications Council, what the status of the general orientations reached by the Council is; and whether issues covered by these general orientations could be reopened by the UK. [51722]
§ Mr. AlexanderA "general orientation", now more often known as a "general approach", is an indication of the formal position the Council might take at a later stage. The term is used when a formal position of the Council cannot be reached because the legislative pre-conditions of the decision-making process have not yet been met, for example because the European Parliament has not yet delivered its opinion.
There were two general approaches reached at the 25 March Telecommunications Council relating to decisions on electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA) (Council number 11983–01) and Trans-European Telecommunications Networks (Council number 15324–01). Both proposals had cleared parliamentary scrutiny in advance of the Council, so we signalled that there were no outstanding UK issues to raise for the moment. It does however remain open to use to raise additional issues if the European Parliament proposes significant amendments. We will keep the Committees informed of developments.