Mr. Gerry Kiely:

I thank all the members for their comments. I will make a general comment on all of them. Populism and nationalism are unhealthy. I do not like calling the phenomenon nationalism because we are all nationalistic in some way or another. I refer to a kind of negative nationalism, a nationalism that stands on the back of migrants, foreigners and people who are different. There is no question that there is a problem. It is a problem that is being whipped up by interested parties inside and outside the European Union. There is a lot of evidence of money coming in from outside the Union with a view to weakening it. I do not know the extent to which this trend will continue. For the moment, however, it is growing rather than declining. It is an issue that will have to be dealt with. It is an issue that will certainly come into play in the European Parliament elections. The extent to which anti-European parties will be elected to the Parliament remains to be seen. It could have an influence on how the European Union goes forward. Ultimately, the populist parties or populist propagandists do not need to be tackled on their own ground. Those who are pro-Europe and in favour of the ideas and values of Europe should promote those ideas and values rather than fighting a battle with the populists on their territory.

With regard to Brexit, our President and everyone has made it very clear that there are no winners. It is only a question of minimising the damage. One of the commissioners or the President commented last weekend on how much effort has been put into a damage-limitation negotiation. In any negotiations we engage in, we aim for a win–win outcome. Brexit involves a lose–lose scenario. It is only a question of how much.

Linking back to the comments on populism, migration is still a big political issue but when one looks at the figures, although I do not want to say that migration has been solved, in the past 12 months the number of migrants coming into Europe was something of the order of 55,000 or 60,000. It would be a big crowd in Croke Park but against the EU's current population of 500 million people it is not unmanageable. It is nothing in comparison with the 1 million who came in in 2015. Management of the migration issue is improving all of the time. The members talked about money for dealing with it. There has been a huge increase in the amount of funding from the EU to deal with migration on every front, both internal and external. Monitoring is taking place in Libya. I am not sure of the extent to which the EU's representatives are involved in that monitoring, but we are certainly in there with other international bodies.

On the question about treaty change, there is nothing on the table at the moment. Nothing that the Commission has proposed would necessitate treaty change. For example, there are a number of proposals on the table which require unanimity. It could be done by qualified majority voting, but a vote and unanimous agreement of the member states would be required to move towards qualified majority voting.

There is a lot of talk about a European army. Who knows what is going to happen way down the road? For the moment, the Commission's proposals and the discussions are about more co-ordination. For example, the combined defence expenditure of individual member states equates to something like 40% of what the US spends on its defence yet we have only 10% of its capability purely because everybody is working to their own standards. There is no compatibility between the systems in the different member states. A lot of what is happening at the moment is aimed at research on a defence capability which would be more suitable to Europe's needs than what is available. It is also aimed at having compatibility between the defence systems of different members states so that they can work together.

There is an awful lot said about European bureaucracy but I am not totally convinced about it. An awful lot of the bureaucracy happens between Brussels, the member state, and the citizen. The Commission has often had to intervene to deal with bureaucracy, particularly on the Common Agricultural Policy although I am sure it happens elsewhere. Some members states tend to be overzealous in their application of the rules. I agree 100% that we must get closer to the citizen but there are 500 million citizens. That is not going to be done by the Commission, the Parliament or the Council; it has to be done at local level.

No one mentioned a democratic deficit but it keeps coming up all of the time. There is no democratic deficit in the Council because a weighted qualified majority is required and a straight majority does not deliver anything. There is also the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, and many structures involving non-governmental organisations. There is a great amount of tapping into citizens' concerns and interests at that level, but getting closer to citizens has to be done at national and local level by people, primarily politicians. As President Juncker has said many times, Europe is you and me; it is not the people in Brussels.

I mentioned treaty change and referenda. There is nothing on the table which would necessitate that, but that does not mean that some of the ideas floating around from different individuals, including presidents etc., might not necessitate a treaty change. We are a long way away from that however. I will leave it there.