Mr. David O'Sullivan:

The Deputy has raised many matters. I will try to do them justice. On the question of alienating the national legal system, I sincerely think this is not a risk. The national legal system remains and people's rights under it are unaffected. CETA simply creates a system whereby it is possible to arbitrate disagreements in a different way if people want to do that. It creates certain rights for investors and states. There is very strong language in CETA on the right of states to regulate. I cannot imagine, for one moment, that the legislation which the Government will bring forward on climate change, which is part of the wider European effort to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030 and be emission neutral by 2050, would in any way be affected by these provisions. Maybe a lawyer could imagine it. I am not a lawyer but I really do not see how that could be the case.

On the issue of referendums and trade deals, it is of course, in the end, for each of our member states to decide, in accordance with their constitutions, how they want to manage these kinds of situations. This includes decisions on when referendums are needed, when things are done at Government level, when are they done at the level of the houses of Parliament and so forth. As a practitioner, I can honestly say that if I sit down with any significant trading partners, such as the United States, Canada, Vietnam or Australia, and have to say to them that there will be a referendum at the end of this, I do not think they would even want to have the conversation. They would understand that it would be a very difficult, risky situation for them, because they have to deal with their domestic politics about these trade deals and what is in them.

We need a system which enables us, in a very transparent, public and open way, in the run-up to reaching the deal. Under Cecilia Malmström, the EU Commissioner for Trade who preceded Phil Hogan, transparency was brought to a new level in that all the documents in a trade negotiation are now made freely available on the web. There is wide opportunity for civil society and national parliaments to see what is going on and to be seized of the issue. When a deal is finally arrived at, needs to be concluded and is decided at the level of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, it has been thoroughly analysed and the result is a truly democratic and accountable one. That then should be the end of it. If one has to go back and have further discussions in all of our member states, it will become a system which is simply unmanageable, relative to our trading partners.

On the issue of the tribunal, I confess I do not know the precise way in which the tribunals will be appointed. The proposal is that they will be full-time, qualified, judicial appointees. They will not be, as is frequently the case currently, a group of lawyers or people just selected by the parties. There will be a system of transparent nomination.

Of course, this is in the investment court system, ICS, in CETA. Although I cannot give an informed answer, I imagine the multilateral court also envisages some form of transparent appointment process whereby it would be known who these people were and, more important, that they would be full time on this job rather than part time as is currently the case with the ad hocsystem. Many of those guarantees are built into these new proposals.