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Conclusions of the Meeting with the Alliance Delegation on 22 May 1403
Venue for substantive meetings of Strand 2
Strand 2 should be held in Parliament Buildings.
Role of the Chairman
The Alliance Party said that they saw the role of the chairman to be that of a facilitator rather than that of an arbitrator or a decision-maker, though they recognised that there would be occasions when, having done his best to produce a meeting of minds, he would need to put forward his own proposals for the resolution of an issue based on his best assessment of the positions of the various participants. They recommended that whoever was chosen should be a native English speaker or at least fluent in English.
The machinery for dialogue between the chairman and the participants on the handling of business
The business decisions of the second strand might be handled by a business committee on which all the delegations would be represented; it might be helpful if the committee did not include the heads of the delegations.
The staff the Chairman might require
The Secretary of State should make what arrangements he considered necessary.
The Standing Orders/Rules of Procedure under which the chairman would operate
Standing orders should provide sufficient structure to ensure that the proceedings were orderly but leave as much room for flexibility as possible.
It was agreed:
- that the Chairman should have the power to convene, postpone and adjourn the meetings;
- that everyone should be appreciative of the time constraints under which they were working;
- that it should be possible to have bilaterals and sub-plenary working groups as well as full plenary meetings, and while these could take place anywhere, this should not lead to an unnecessary amount of time being wasted on travel;
- that a rule of confidentiality might not be feasible but that the Chairman should be advised to be extraordinarily careful in what he said;
- that Minutes should be kept.