President Barroso, I would like to thank you for your kind invitation to come here today to meet with the full Commission.
I speak to you today representing a country which has quite literally been transformed by its membership of the European Union - economically, socially, politically and psychologically.
Ireland has always been supportive of the Commission, whose role we see as vital to the effective operation of the Union to the benefit of all Member States. We may disagree with you from time to time, but you have no better friend than Ireland in the Council. Allow me to say how delighted we are that you have chosen an Irish woman to be your Secretary General.
The institutional balance that has served us so well for 50 years retains its relevance today. A strong and independent Commission, is essential in ensuring fairness within the Union.
We appreciate the leadership you provide on many European issues, including, for example, the enlargement issue which was on your agenda earlier today. Your consistent and generous support for our peace process has been hugely important and is deeply appreciated. Nothing could better illustrate Europe’s respect for the individual character of its Member States than the enhanced status to be enjoyed by the Irish language from next year. We are grateful for your support for the introduction of the new arrangements.
Constitution
It is five years since we last met in this format. At that time, the Union was also dealing with the consequences of a negative referendum result on a European Treaty.
The Irish people’s vote against the Nice Treaty taught us that the support of the public for European integration cannot be taken for granted. From the beginning, we were determined to find a solution which would enable the Treaty of Nice to be ratified. After we had addressed their principal concerns, the Irish public voted strongly to accept the Treaty.
The current situation is undoubtedly more complex, but we need a clearer understanding of what it is about the Constitutional Treaty that has caused these negative votes.
In our approach to this issue, the Constitutional Treaty remains very much on the table. As we plot a way forward for Europe, we must not discard the years of careful work that went into the drafting and negotiating of the Constitutional Treaty.
I know all too well how carefully we had to craft the final package to ensure balance and facilitate agreement. I can vividly recall my tour of capitals in May and June 2004. In every case, there were concerns and national sensitivities that had to be taken on board.
Indeed, President, I remember the wording of a particular article being negotiated in your office in Lisbon. This finely balanced package, once unravelled, will be impossible to put together again.
The balances in the 2004 text - between the institutions, between the Member States and between what is done at European and national level - are the right ones.
The difficulties of moving forward with the Constitution are significant. But let us consider some of the alternatives being put forward.
A complete renegotiation or the agreement of a truncated Treaty would mark a serious reverse for the Union. If agreement could be reached on a different Treaty, it would almost certainly represent a step back from the 2004 text.
Cherry-picking from the Constitution is unrealistic. Everyone would want to pick different cherries.
The option of letting the Union continue with its existing arrangements is not, in my view, a sustainable approach. We need urgent constitutional change if the Union is to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
Although there is no easy way forward, the right and realistic course is to return at the appropriate time to the substance of the Constitutional Treaty. We must seek to change the political context so that the Treaty can re-establish itself as the preferred, and indeed only realistic, formula for shaping Europe’s future.
We need to be mindful of what our public wants. They are interested in what the Union does and not in how it does it. They want Europe to be more effective and that places the onus on us to improve our delivery capabilities.
The European Union is rightly pursuing two tracks at the moment - continuing reflection on the Future of Europe and addressing the citizens’ concerns under the existing Treaties.
Both tracks are essential. The Union needs a coherent, streamlined basis for addressing the challenges ahead. At the same time, we cannot put practical progress on hold.
We are making progress on a number of fronts. Enlargement was a huge undertaking and it has been a success. The new financial framework is agreed. We have become more active and coherent in our external relations.
There is an opportunity next year for advancing our shared European agenda. The 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome offers scope for highlighting the EU’s achievements and of building on these in order to serve our peoples’ current and future needs. The German Presidency and the French elections should help to dispel some of the current uncertainty and create the conditions for pressing on with key decisions on the future of Europe.
Competitiveness
Ireland has by any standards made tremendous progress since the 1980s. European Union membership and assistance has played a major part in our recent success. Cohesion and Structural Funding came at a critical time in our attempts to refocus the economy.
It is sometimes argued that achieving competitiveness threatens the achievements of the European Social Model. The Irish Government is very much in the camp of those who believe that competitiveness and social inclusion are partners, not rivals. This, after all, is the key principle underpinning the design of our national system of social partnership, which brings together the key economic and social interests in this country.
This process of extensive and intensive social dialogue has delivered excellent results in the form of 18 consecutive years of economic growth; improved living standards; and greater social inclusion.
I believe that economic and social policies should be mutually reinforcing because our greatest potential source of economic growth is our people. If we are to fully realise the talent of all of our people, we have to nurture and release it through our social policies. We have to invest in our people. We have to ensure that all have an opportunity to participate fully, both in economic and social terms.
Well-designed social protection can enable our workforce to embrace change and undertake new roles in emerging sectors. In an economy as open as ours, a good social safety net is essential to successful economic performance.
In turn, steady growth, allied to prudent fiscal policy, generates the resources to fund the services and income transfers, on a sustainable basis, that enable people to live life with dignity and achieve their full potential. The strategy which we have pursued in Ireland has facilitated record rates of increases in social spending, including record real increases in social benefits.
A key factor in our success has been tailoring Government to the needs of society and the needs of the economy. We have avoided, where at all possible, unnecessary or disproportionate regulation. In many ways, our approach foreshadowed the current approach to better regulation by the Commission, an approach which, you are no doubt aware, we strongly support.
We now face new challenges. We are no longer a low cost economy. We have increasing competitive challenges from other Member States and from the newly emerging economies of Asia.
Our focus now is on moving up the value chain. We have announced major investment in research and development. We are investing heavily in third-level education. Up-skilling of our labour force generally is also a major priority. These are reflected in the annual Progress Report under the revamped Lisbon Strategy which we sent to the Commission last month.
We welcome the Commission’s focus on research and development. This is an area where Europe needs to make rapid progress if it is to maintain its competitiveness. I particularly appreciate, President Barroso, your personal commitment to the innovation agenda where the Commission is now seen to be driving the Union’s priorities on innovation. I view the Commission’s proposals for a European Institute of Technology as just one example of where the Commission is putting the case for a stronger common effort to sharpen Europe’s approach.
Ireland strongly supports the Commission’s efforts to find a resolution to the Community patent issue. As you know, the Irish Presidency made tremendous efforts to get agreement on this dossier but unfortunately was unable to do so.
The failure to agree the patent is by no means an isolated case. I know that you share my concern at the increasing difficulty in agreeing necessary measures to improve the Union economically and socially. Much of the legislation required can be decided by qualified majority voting. Yet on a broad range of issues, be it the working time directive, the Community patent or the Services Directive, crafting any agreement has proved extremely difficult.
There is, it seems, a growing reluctance across the Member States to create further community level legislation even where this legislation is clearly necessary.
There are no easy solutions to this problem.
Deepening of the Lisbon Agenda and the ongoing economic resurgence in Europe will, I feel, have a positive effect.
I am not personally convinced that enhanced cooperation by smaller groups of Member States in relation to particular policy issues will provide anything other than a short term solution. Such arrangements are likely to create more confusion than progress, and as I have already mentioned, many of the logjams in the system are in areas where qualified majority voting applies.
If we are to make more significant progress however, I believe that it can only be crafted on the basis of a deeper partnership between the Commission and the Member States based on a more strategic approach from the Commission in its dealings with Member States.
In this context, I feel a more focussed and collaborative approach to the enforcement of EU legislation could be worth exploring.
For some time now, we have been urging close attention at the EU-wide level to the globalisation agenda and the need for the Union to rise to the challenges and opportunities that this presents.
Maintaining the European way of life depends on competition within the EU and competition between the EU and the emerging economic blocks.
We need to make sure both that Member States have sufficient freedom to compete with each other on a level playing field and that there is sufficient cohesion for the EU to compete with these trading blocks and to act effectively in international fora.
For example, Competition and State Aids policy needs to move from an overly localised focus to a European-based approach. There is a real need to take account of the fact that Europe, in seeking to attract mobile investment, is in competition with other major economic powers. The commitment to take international competitive forces into account in the ongoing review of the Union’s State Aids Policy and indeed all its internal policies is a very positive development.
Any relationship between the Member States and the Commission will have little effect if we do not bind in wider society. This is why I strongly believe that we need, if at all possible, to give real substance to the social dialogue. The current system of tripartite summits between the European Union and the social partners needs to be underpinned by a similar mobilisation at Member State level, as envisaged in the system of National Reform Programmes. We are not, I feel, succeeding in engaging the social partners, in particular the trade unions, in a real debate on reform of the European social model, on the development of flexicurity and on the modernisation of labour markets and social models.
Finally, let me conclude by saying that Ireland’s experience in the European Union has been an overwhelmingly positive one. In the coming years, we need to get across better the message on the positive achievements of the European Union.
We also need to continue to deliver real tangible benefits in terms of legislation and delivery. In this context, I feel that the European Commission has a very strong message to give to the Member States and their citizens. That message, if it is to be heard fully, needs to be focused particularly on results.
Thank you.
ENDS