March 2001

There was good news for the west of Scotland this month when the European Commission announced an aid package of £ 305.6 million. The investment in the Western Scotland Programme is being financed by the European Regional Development Fund and is expected to attract a further £ 595 million in investment from the UK public and private sectors and create 85,000 jobs. I asked Commissioner Michel Barnier who is responsible for the European Regional Development Fund, the source of this funding, some time ago to include parts of the Scotland which had been omitted from the original application from the Scottish Executive and I am happy to see that at least some of my recommendations were eventually taken on board. The latest funding is aimed at encouraging companies' capacity for innovation and improving the economic appeal of the area. This is the last announcement in a series of decisions concerning Scotland. The structural funds are admittedly spread ever more thinly but they stretch from the Highlands and Islands Enteprise Area to the Borders, taking in parts of Alloa, Stirling and Falkirk, Fife, Tayside, Moray and Gordon.

The dominance of English and the importance of knowing a foreign language were brought home forcibly with the results of a recent EU poll. English, not surprisingly, was the most widely spoken second language in the poll of 16,000 Europeans, with 41% of Europeans speaking our mother tongue fluently. An embarrassing 66% of British people however speak only English. And while less than 50% of people in Portugal, France and Spain can speak another language, more than 85% of people in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands have at least one other language. Although a total of 74% of Europeans were able to speak only one language, there was wide backing for the idea that everyone should learn to speak at least one other tongue. This is the European year of Languages. What's stopping us?

A three-year action plan to tackle the growing problem of credit card fraud was unveiled by the Commission recently. Such fraud amounts to an estimated £ 378 million a year in the EU and rose by 50% last year. Card and other non-cash means are widely used in cross-border payments, often by telephone or over the Internet. While dealing with the problem is the responsibility of the payments industry, the proposal plan aims to back this up by improving systems for cross-border co-operation and preventive measures. These include introducing a single telephone number for notifying the loss or theft of cards, guidelines for exchange of information and agreement on the key items of evidence needed to investigate and prosecute cases. Co-operation would also be pursued with countries outside the EU and in international discussions.

According to the recently published and apparently misprinted European Union's Official Journal, British citizens will be celebrating a series of extra holidays this year. These bonus bank holidays include Maundy Thursday, Ascension Day and All Saints Day. And just to show that the UK can put Eurosceptiscism aside, provided there's a day off in it, we will also, apparently, observe Belgium's national holiday in July!