Mr. Tommy Murray:

When Ireland assumes the Presidency of the European Union, it will have to be aware that it also assumes the mantle of honest broker or chairperson. There are many shades of view among the member states. I ask members to forgive me for being a little circumspect on some of the issues raised because they are to the fore in the Council. In holding the Presidency we can espouse certain orientations at the Council and will have control over the Council agenda; therefore, we can certainly have an influence on what we see as our view of the world in terms of what we want to pursue at the Council.

Smart regulation is one of those issues on which we have animated discussions at the Council. The Commission's administrative burden action plan will be brought to finality at the end of the year. That is the plan which envisaged an overall reduction in the administrative burden of 25%. I understand we have been quite successful at European level in achieving this target. There is a discussion commencing between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council on whether we need to move on from that action plan and have another round of administrative burden targets. That discussion will take place at the Council. Meanwhile, there is a communication on smart regulation coming from the Commission which will be treated as a prominent issue by us at the Council. In order to tee it up, a high level meeting of directors general on administrative burdens will take place in Dublin on 22 and 23 November. Following the making of recommendations at the meeting, we will examine how the issue can be usefully pursued through the Council, at which there are many views. Various like-minded member states have taken certain views on the issue of regulation. However, we can have this debate on deregulation and better regulation. While everybody agrees that smart regulation is a good idea, it is a matter of how it is transposed in the member states. Administrative burdens and smart regulation will certainly be a very prominent issue for us at the Council and I envisage us producing recommendations or Council conclusions during the Presidency at the May Council next year.