Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Jacobs for his presentation and for coming in today. Before I ask for contributions from the floor I would like some clarification on a few of the points that Mr. Jacobs raised. He mentioned how European Parliament committees could take more input from national parliaments and spoke about the yellow card and so on. Does he envisage that people from national parliaments would attend committees of the European Parliament? What are his thoughts on how that link-up could be improved?

Second, he mentioned the Danish Parliament's initiative to increase awareness among Danish citizens of the work of the European Parliament. As I am not familiar with that work, could he outline what exactly it does? We could then see whether we could do something similar here.

Many of us would welcome the proposal and prospect of having a real European election as opposed to a referendum on government performance, which is what many European elections have been. What work will organisations such as the European Parliament Information Office do to put pressure on, and encourage, political parties on issues such as greater representation by women, early choice of candidates and putting out a political message based on the European vision as opposed to the local vision? What will Mr. Jacobs' organisation and others such as the European Movement be doing to try to steer the political agenda that way?