Dr. Emmanuel Schön-Quinlivan:

They did not pretend. They just said, "Potentially, on the implementation front, we might look at implementing a bit more subsidiarity, but that is it."

I will discuss the school programme at the end because it is something I am involved in. Deputy Brophy mentioned that the EU needs to lock in what it is within the context of the debate on the future of Europe and what the EU is aspiring to be. Again, I think this fits back to what Senator Richmond was pointing towards with reference to the speech given by Emmanuel Macron at the Sorbonne last September, which was extremely rich in terms of ideas and of visions for the future of the EU. However, he pronounced it three days before Angela Merkel discovered that she would not have a majority and, therefore, he did not get the backing of a strong German Government to try to implement the reforms he laid out. His idea focuses on European sovereignty and asks that we would build a Europe which breaks away from what we have at the moment through a series of concentric circles. In terms of the five scenarios laid out by Jean-Claude Juncker, Macron is looking at doing more, but only certain of us will do more at the start. In other words, the centre circle of the concentric circles will move towards further integration, and then the second circle and the third circle.

This is why he mentioned the UK, though not in the context of Brexit. He did not actually utter the word "Brexit". He mentioned the UK and I think his intention was to have the UK sitting in the third circle.