Ms Zita Gurmai:

Thank you very much. Mr. Casini has a very busy schedule, but it was very important for him to meet this committee as it takes integration seriously. I would like to make a point concerning youth unemployment. What does Ireland expect to achieve in this regard during its Presidency? What minimum and maximum achievement does it expect? We know the three main goals of the Presidency and that the third of these is to deal with youth unemployment. I agree that the growing figure of 22.4% youth unemployment - 30% in Ireland - is very worrying. Every second Greek or Spanish young person is unemployed.

Over a year ago, the European Socialist Party and I, as president of the women's organisation, created a working group because we believed it was time to take this issue seriously. We recognise that the cost of 5.5 million young unemployed will be in the region of €100 billion. However, creating new jobs for them would only cost one tenth of that. Together with our colleagues in the European Parliament, we agree we should create credible new jobs, not jobs that come and go. We need proper jobs for the next generation. There is growing extremism in Europe and if we do not take care of the next generation, who will care for us?

Last year, the European Parliament and the Commission dealt with the pension report. I am looking forward to receiving details of the Austrian model and its youth guarantee. It is now functioning properly and within four years the Austrian Government has proved it works by having the lowest unemployment rate. The youth guarantee means that after young people leave school, they get a type of guarantee for four months to find a possible opportunity. This shows that the Austrian Government really cares. Deputy Crowe mentioned Mr. Barroso's speech on the state of the European Union. Of course, Mr. Barroso is very worried, but sometimes I get the impression that the Commission acts quite late. It spends more time inactive. Last summer, when the Greek crisis started, the Commission took a summer holiday. It should have taken more responsibility for what happened rather than let the market run on the issue.

As a shadow reporter of political parties, I believe we really need strong political parties. We have strong European institutions and the Council, which is quite strong. I believe we now need the strong power of the political parties. Our intention during the Irish Presidency is to make progress in this regard. Before the 2014 European parliamentary election, we look forward to having real debate on Europe's destiny. We look forward to each parliamentary party having a candidate for the Commission and to a wide debate on the destiny of Europe. Many parties are minority parties, but all need to be involved in a proper debate on European issues. I was the core rapporteur of the European citizens initiative, and I and my great colleague, Gerald Hafner, worked very hard on that. However, I would like to make it clear that what we wanted to do was to create an instrument for European citizens to allow them take part in the European debate. However, now that we are in a state of economic, financial and moral crisis, it is not the best time for this from the perspective of citizens.

There is a lot depending on the Irish Presidency. Having had the opportunity to meet the Tánaiste and the Minister with responsibility for European integration, who has been an active partner of this committee, I am convinced Ireland has a very challenging programme for the Irish Presidency and I look forward to it achieving a good result. I come from a medium sized country, Hungary, where we had a woman dealing with the issues during Hungary's Presidency, so I hope the Minister of State, Deputy Lucinda Creighton, will do a very good job with the committee's co-operation.