Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Vice President to the meeting. I had the privilege of welcoming her to St. Vincent's national school for girls in Dublin Central this morning. Ms Reding is fortunate to have had an opportunity to visit the best constituency in the country during her stay in Ireland and to see one of our finest schools. The staff and pupils did an excellent job in demonstrating their ongoing efforts to learn about the work that is done in Europe. I hope Ms Reding will agree that what she saw this morning was a clear example of how, despite the difficulties facing this country, our public servants, schools and communities are ensuring that everything which makes the country great continues to be in evidence. I thank the Vice President for participating in that event.

Will Ms Reding elaborate on what is envisaged in the reference in her contribution to the idea of political union? We in this country are well acquainted with the challenges arising from economic union. As a consequence of the recent referendum, there is a high level of understanding among citizens of what needs to be done to enhance that union. There are different views, of course, as to whether it should be enhanced at all. However, many people might struggle with the notion that because we are integrated economically, albeit still lacking effective governance mechanisms, this generates a platform for the proposal that we should have common foreign and security policies. The argument seems to be that the response to profound economic crisis, of itself, provides the rationale for integration in the area, for example, of justice policy. I am not convinced by the arguments for this linkage. When Ms Reding refers to political union, does she mean a union across economic aspects of governance or does she have a broader vision in mind? If the latter, how does she justify that as a response to an economic crisis?

We have had proposals from the President of the Commission, Mr. Barroso, for a banking union. A positive recent development in the ongoing efforts to safeguard economic union is the increased timeliness of responses. The fiscal treaty, for instance, was successfully negotiated in a matter of weeks. Does Ms Reding likewise expect the banking union proposal to be delivered by the beginning of next year, as Mr. Barroso has indicated is his intention?