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This is my initial update for the committee. The engagement and the tone of the engagement have been good. What is more difficult to understand is the relative priorities of the UK Government. That was Mr Bibby’s question, and it was a good question but we do not know the answer to it.

There has been some effort to work out what the European Union’s emerging position is going to be, what the UK’s emerging position is going to be and where there might be trade-offs. Going back to Mr Harvie’s questions about process and where we fit in, the situation facing us is uncertain and, effectively, ad hoc. At least we are invited to attend meetings and are told that we are being listened to. What is not yet apparent is the extent to which negotiations will occur on our behalf.

It is true to say that there was a much higher preponderance of Scottish institutions and Scottish students taking up places in Erasmus+. Therefore, being part of Erasmus+ might be viewed by others as being less of a priority for them than it is for us. We are trying to impress on the UK Government that it is not just a financial decision; it is also about goodwill. It is not just about Scottish students being able to study elsewhere in Europe, but about European Union students being able to study here. We have seen an 81 per cent drop—we have caught up with those numbers, but only in part, and the students concerned are from countries and parts of the world that bring challenges. For example, the biggest single international cohort of students in Edinburgh now comes from the People’s Republic of China. We should be looking closely at how we can support our universities. The international student cohort is very important for them, and being part of Erasmus+ would help with that.

I am very sympathetic to the point that Mr Harvie makes. It is a matter of basic principle. We pay for the health system through our taxes and I believe that we have an intergenerational responsibility. I would wish that young Scots who are able to live and work and are using a youth mobility scheme in the rest of Europe would not be disadvantaged and that what is true for them would, by necessity, also be true for Europeans.

Mr Kerr has invited me to give a yes or no answer, but I think that it would be more sensible for me to understand what the different relative positions would be. If that were the position of the UK Government, what would the position of the European Union institutions be in relation to that? As soon as I have greater clarification on that, I will be happy to come back to you.

Convener, I am trying to make the point that, as I have said to the committee, we are about to learn a lot more about the UK Government’s position.

If you are asking me to talk in concrete terms about a UK Government scheme that may change on the basis of the proposals that are about to be set out, I would prefer to reserve my position until I have looked at the proposals for an enhanced scheme relative to that which is currently in place.

The fact that the UK left Erasmus+ has been massively detrimental to young people. We remember, of course, that the UK Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, gave an assurance to the House of Commons that that would not be the case. He said that the UK would remain in the Erasmus+ scheme and lauded what it had delivered for young people. I agree with him on that. I will say more about that once I have spoken about culture. The UK’s withdrawal from Erasmus+ did not need to happen. It was unnecessary and was a form of self-harm from the point of view of younger people’s life chances.

Similarly, the UK did not need to leave the creative Europe programme. Members of Scotland’s creative community are absolutely clear about their desire for Scotland and the UK to be part of that programme. They look at other third countries that are members of it and see how those countries benefit from being part of it, and they do not understand why the UK is not.

I would strongly encourage the UK Government to look at both those areas, in the same way that the previous UK Government did in relation to the horizon programme, which is a similar programme for university and wider research. It was acknowledged that it was a big mistake to leave that programme. The university sector was keen to rejoin it, and the most recent UK Conservative Government realised that the UK could again play a part in it.

I see Erasmus+ and creative Europe in exactly the same way. There is a willingness among European Union countries and institutions for the UK to rejoin those schemes. I very much hope that that will be the case because, for young people and people in our creative sector, that would go a long way to ending the self-harm that we have had to endure since Brexit. On a more positive note, it would enable us to mend and rebuild educational opportunities for young people to study and learn, and it would facilitate international co-operation for our creative sector.

Of course.

That, too.

Welcome back to the committee, Mr Harvie. It is nice to see you in your place. I will allow my civil service colleagues to collect any thoughts or reflections that they may have, because, as committee members will appreciate, most of the work that is done in preparation for and as part of such processes is driven at a working level by officials speaking to one another regularly. However, I will be happy to talk about my experience in dealing with UK Government colleagues and European interlocutors as part of the process.

The term “reset” is not liked in Brussels, but I think that we all understand what is meant by it, which is that intergovernmental relations between the UK and the EU, which were previously more fraught, should be less fraught and more positively aligned. Incidentally, the same approach should be taken between the UK Government and the devolved Administrations in the UK, because those relations had been very bad under the previous UK Government.

When I have met colleagues in Brussels, they have reported that the still relatively new UK Government is definitely taking a different approach in its discussions with the EU. I would attest to the fact that, in the meetings that I have had, it is constantly stressed that we are in different territory and that the UK Government wants to listen. In that respect, it is a case of “So far, so good”.

I do not think that Mr Harvie was on the committee when I shared the insight of people in Brussels, who described the UK Government’s position by referring to the Spice Girls. I am judging from Mr Harvie’s face that he has not heard this before. EU colleagues said that they were not sure what the UK Government really wanted. They were saying, “Tell us what you want, what you really, really want.” That was the chat among everyone at events. They said that it was great that UK Government ministers were having conversations in which they said that the UK Government wanted to get on positively and that it was exploring various areas in which discussions could be held and agreement could be reached, but that there was a lack of clarity about what the UK Government actually wanted.

In fairness, when a new Government comes in, it has to understand where the previous Government got to and where the interlocutors in Brussels, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast are in relation to all that and to work out what the relative priorities are. With regard to the European Union, we have had European Parliament elections, a new Commission and new commissioners taking up their responsibilities, and I think that everyone has chosen to understand that backdrop as the reason why no substantive progress has yet been made on all those things. We have wished that process a fair wind.

I would characterise the conversations that I have had as follows. Colleagues have clearly and repeatedly expressed their views in similar terms. I met my opposite number, Lisa Nandy, who is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, yesterday, and she started the conversation by saying, “The UK Government is very keen to work with the Scottish Government. Let’s make sure that we can identify ... ”, and so on. That is great, but we are getting to the stage where we need to move beyond terms such as “reset” and atmospherics. What is the UK Government actually going to seek to agree and when? At the same time, we must also bear in mind that a massive black swan has crossed in front of everybody’s considerations in relation to defence and security.

Perhaps that will help everyone to understand—if they did not already realise it—why such areas of potential agreement really matter. It matters that one has good will. There will be different interests in those discussions, and I must hope—it has been reported back to us that this is the case—that the UK Government has taken our positions back. I have said this to the committee before, but I will do so again so that it is on the record. Improving professional mobility; securing EU-UK co-operation and the mutual recognition of professional qualifications; rejoining Erasmus+ and improving youth mobility; removing obstacles for touring artists; and improving migration arrangements to meet Scottish needs. Those things, which I listed in no particular order, are all things that we have asked the UK Government to take seriously.

I think that it is fair to observe two things. First, there has not been significant progress between the UK and the European Union so far. Secondly, preparations are under way in Brussels, London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast for forthcoming meetings in which more substantive progress can be made. That is the stage that we are at.

I observe that the UK Government has been taking the issue more seriously within Government, which is welcome. There have been changes to the machinery in the UK Government to deal with that, including a new Cabinet committee on Europe, which the Prime Minister chairs.

Clearly, the UK Government is thinking about what is coming up. It would be remiss not to draw attention to the changing geostrategic peril that we all feel in Europe at present, and that dimension will perhaps loom larger in everybody’s considerations, here and in the other capitals, of how we work together.

What can I imagine will be coming up? I can imagine that both the United Kingdom and the European Union will be focused on advancing shared interests in defence and security. We would very much welcome for there to be a joint statement on co-operation in that area.

I note that, overnight, the European Union has announced a very significant defence package, which is not open to the United Kingdom defence sector. That might change, were there to be a co-operation agreement between the UK and the EU. That is strong encouragement for that to happen. I think that there is goodwill on all sides to make progress in that area.

For the Scottish Government’s part—I think that you have heard me make this point before—we have, for the longest time, advanced the need for what I call a food, drink and agriculture agreement. The terminology is important, because people might understand what that is as opposed to a “sanitary and phytosanitary agreement”.

For those of us who have been speaking with our food and drink sector and our rural stakeholders, it seems that the general view is that it is very important that we should have such an agreement. We have been impressing that view on the UK Government and sharing it with European Union interlocutors.

There are other areas of common interest to the UK and the European Union: greater co-operation on energy and on law enforcement; addressing irregular migration; and perhaps having something like the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention for example. All those things might feature. Both sides have particular issues that might well be raised as part of the process. There is an expectation that the European Union is very keen to make progress on youth mobility, and we would share its interests in that. We will no doubt come back to that. There is also an expectation that fishing issues will be discussed, although there are no details about what that might involve. We very much hope that the UK Government will push for business mobility and mobility for touring artists.

We expect negotiations after the forthcoming summit to continue over the summer. We are not aware of discussions between the parties as yet on the timing of the next TCA Partnership Council or on the spring round of specialised committees. I think that we are at the cusp of making progress. We have been making our priorities clear, and no doubt we can go into that in detail.

In fairness to my opposite number in the UK Government, Nick Thomas-Symonds has been impressing on me and colleagues in Wales and Northern Ireland that the UK Government wants to take the priorities of devolved Administrations seriously. We are taking that at face value, and we very much hope that progress can be made on those matters as well as on the other areas that will be discussed.