Ms Mairéad McCabe:

I thank the Chairman. While the Commission has identified a one-year negotiation period, it could go longer. In the meantime there are regular working party discussions, where article-by-article consideration takes place. That negotiation will be twin-tracked with the technical discussions that are just kicking off at the end of this week.

It is geared towards the preparatory work that must be done on the technical standards, specifications and so forth. In the meantime, the Department will reach out to various stakeholders to ensure that there is a common understanding of the text as it involves and that Ireland’s inputs in this regard will hit home. In a way, the whole purpose of the working party negotiations is to allow member states to challenge the Commission's thinking and to double-check that there are no unforeseen consequences in what is being proposed. Active dialogue will be ongoing at national level and that will feed into the working party discussions. At certain points, the Commission will refer back to the working party on areas of concern.

The ongoing discussions are geared towards the development of a toolbox. In respect of developing the end product, pilot implementation projects will be undertaken in various member states and representatives from those will all be talking to each other concerning the architecture and standards. Turning to the implementing acts that were mentioned several times this morning, the devil in those details will have to be worked out at the level of technical subgroups. Therefore, we are looking at the deployment of the digital wallet and the Commission is striving for that to happen within 12 months. Again, that seems ambitious regarding whether it is doable. An assessment will be conducted by the Commission some 18 months after the deployment of the new digital wallet to see whether it is working well in practice and what, if any, changes might be needed.