Ms Barbara Nolan:

I thank the committee for the invitation to present the Commission's work programme. Before we get down to business, I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate the Chairman and committee on all their work during Ireland's EU Presidency. In particular, the handling of the COSAC meetings was impeccable. It significantly boosted the involvement of national parliaments in EU matters. We in the Commission are keen to support that. We very much appreciate all the hard work that was done during the first six months of this year.

In October, the European Commission adopted its work programme for 2014. The overall emphasis is on action and results. With the European Parliament elections looming in May 2014, there is a legislative hiatus on the horizon. In the work programme, considerable emphasis is put on trying to ensure that the work of the European Parliament and the Council on important proposals from the Commission, some of which have been on the table for a couple of years and others that are new, is completed. The new initiatives are limited. There are only four purely legislative initiatives, although other initiatives are a mixture of legislation and softer measures such as communications or recommendations. We have tried to focus on putting forward what we think has a chance of getting through the machine, if one likes, because we have a very small window in which to get business done.

A key stepping stone on the way to the adoption of the Commission work programme was President Barroso's State of the Union address to the European Parliament in September. That set out the overarching political and economic ambitions and priorities for the Commission in the year ahead. A key message from the address is that Europe is on the right track for recovery. In Ireland, there are signs that the country is beginning to turn a corner. However, President Barroso also underlined that there is still a lot of work to be done. He said: "We owe it to our 26 million unemployed. Especially to the young people who are looking to us [the political leaders] to give them hope". Even if things are looking brighter, there is no room for complacency.

That leads us to the overarching policy priorities. The first is deepening economic and monetary union and progressing work on the banking union, which takes top billing in that regard. The second is delivering on growth and jobs, with a focus on tackling youth unemployment - I will return to the youth guarantee - and there are also the issues of strengthening the Single Market and promoting trade.

The Commission work programme essentially translates the State of the Union speech into concrete actions. The Commission does not develop the work programme in isolation. It takes account of a variety of inputs across member states,including debates in this Parliament, the European Parliament and parliaments elsewhere in the EU. It also draws on the feedback from COSAC meetings in developing concrete actions.

There are five annexes to the Commission work programme. It sounds heavy and bureaucratic, but in fact all the material one would wish to find is contained in the annexes. If one wants to know about a particular Commission initiative, there is a roadmap for each one when one gets into the detail of the annexes. It is important that people are aware that there are no secrets. All the information is available in the annexes to the Commission's work programme. Some highlights include economic and monetary union, notably the adoption of key proposals on banking union and the further development of economic policy co-ordination; making the best use of the EU budget - the multi-annual financial framework, MFF, programmes are to be rolled out to support growth and jobs and to get the money flowing out to member states; completing the Single Market, including in the field of telecommunications; justice and security; and taking forward the EU's external agenda. A constant theme throughout the programme is the delivery of a concrete set of measures that will benefit citizens.

I will give more detail on the highlights. In terms of economic and monetary union, the Commission will continue work on completing the banking union. While very good progress was made on this under the Irish Presidency, a lot remains to be done. Looking at specific measures, the adoption of the single resolution mechanism, SRM, fund is a priority. I also want to flag the fact that the single supervisory mechanism will become operational in 2014.

The Commission will work to reinforce economic governancein the European Union. I wish to focus on one issue that I believe will be of relevance to the country and to the committee, namely, the European semester. For Ireland, the focus in recent years has been understandably, and almost exclusively, on the implementation of Ireland's EU-IMF programme and not on the European semester. However, with Ireland's exit from the programme imminent, the semester will move centre stage. As the crisis has demonstrated, there is a need for greater economic policy co­ordination between European countries. The European semester is a central pillar of that. Under the semester process, the European Commission publishes a set of economic policy and reform recommendations tailored to each member state. They are known as country-specific recommendations or, in the awful jargon used, CSRs. They are subsequently adopted by the Council at the end of June or in early July. The recommendations will point to the important reforms that need to be undertaken in Ireland and in all EU member states from next year onwards. For example, recommendations for other member states have targeted areas such as fiscal deficits, pension reform, welfare reform, labour activation and stimulating competition in professional services.

In developing the country-specific recommendations, the input of national parliaments is vital. The semester process for 2014, in which this country will take full part, kicks off tomorrow, 13 November, with the publication of the European Commission's economic priorities for the year ahead in the Annual Growth Survey, which will give an overview of the general economic situation of the EU and identify common policy priorities. On Friday, 15 November, for the first time ever, thanks to the adoption of the two-pack, the Commission will publish opinions on the draft budgets of euro countries and reports on countries in the excessive deficit procedure. Ireland will not have an opinion published on its budget because it is still under the EU-IMF programme until the end of the year, but that will happen in the future.