Mr. Nigel Nagarajan:

Deputy Donnelly asked about equality. One of the priorities I talked about was social consequences of the crisis and tackling unemployment. It is an important issue which is reflected in that priority. I would be happy to hear more on the Deputy's views of how that should be developed further.

To address Senator Barrett's points, there is widespread appreciation of the fact that there were design faults in EMU. I will not pretend there were not. The crisis would not have been as deep if there were no faults. The policy initiatives that have come forward are attempts at EU and national level to address some of those design flaws. Recently, the Commission has produced a blueprint for a deep and genuine EMU, which goes much further than would have been considered possible only a few years ago. It includes mutualisation of risk and the possibility of deepening solidarity on some of the matters Senator Barrett mentioned. It is a little bit unfair to say that Brussels is unaware of the need to address some of these design flaws. We may not be addressing them in quite the way Senator Barrett thinks we should but we are beginning to deal with them in some of these initiatives.

If the Senator has specific actions he feels we should be taking, I am very happy to listen to them. He was critical of the annual growth survey, but if he has different suggestions I would like to know what they are. One of the points of attending this meeting is not just to talk about the AGS but to hear committee members’ views on it.

The public sector makes up 50% of GDP in Europe, as mentioned in the AGS. Many of the most successful economies in the world are those with large public sectors. The Scandinavian economies, for example, have large public sectors but are also among the best performing economies in the world. It is not a large public sector by itself that will hinder one from having a successful economy. One needs to have the other elements that can help generate high levels of growth and job creation. The Scandinavian countries have been quite successful in this. They have a combination of generous welfare systems and flexible labour markets. Accordingly, I would not agree with the Senator on this point.