Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Freudenstein and thank him for his contribution. We had similar discussions at previous meetings and with Francis Jacobs from European Parliament Ireland. Mr. Freudenstein is trying to improve democracy and accountability at a time of increasing unpopularity of the concept of the European Union and polarisation within many member states owing to the economic crisis. This time last year Ireland passed the stability treaty in a democratic referendum, which was a positive action. Will the issue of a directly elected EU President become bound up with the nationality of a candidate? Will this cause division between north and south or perhaps the eastern bloc versus the old West, smaller countries and larger countries, rather than be a choice between the parties and policies represented by the candidates? I refer to the animosity between a number of countries. In Mr. Freudenstein's paper on the subject of democracy and legitimacy in the European Union he refers to the European Central Bank which is never able to fix an optimum interest rate. This has been suggested as a reason for the boom experienced in Ireland, Spain and Portugal because interest rates were kept low to suit Mr. Freudenstein's country and France. He states in his paper that until such time as there is convergence of the economies of Europe, this issue will not be fixed. I ask him to expand on that point.