Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Lidington. On behalf of the committee I wish to express our gratitude for his coming before us today. I know he has a very busy schedule while he is in the country. We appreciate his giving of his time and answering all of our questions. For the benefit of the committee, we will have some proposals on how we can improve the role of national parliaments in the European semester to put before COSAC’s plenary session in Dublin in June. Mr. Lidington referred to initiatives such as the yellow card. There are also initiatives to allow member states to put forward their own proposals for legislation. That will be put before COSAC and the Commission in the coming months.

The COSAC schedule will be issued this week. There is one session on the future of Europe, which will be attended by Mr. Jacques Delors, former President of the Commission and renowned federalist as well as Ms Viviane Reding, who as we all know wants to see further political union and treaty change. We have also asked Mr. Lidington’s colleague, Mr. Bill Cash, who is my equivalent Chair in the UK.