H.E. Mr. Vincent Gu?rend:

I thank the Chairman for inviting me to this Joint Committee on European Union Affairs meeting. I had the chance to meet many of the members before becoming French ambassador in October 2020. Every day I am enjoying tremendously this function. Now that France is nearing the end of its Presidency, I thought it would be useful to exchange with the committee about and look back at the five, soon six, months of our Presidency. I am delighted to be with the Deputies and Senators. I will make an introductory statement and be glad to answer any question afterwards.

As the committee members well know, the French Presidency of the Council of the EU started on 1 January and will end on 30 June. France took the baton from Slovenia and will hand it over to the Czechia. We are part of a so-called trio with Czechia and Sweden.

As the committee well knows, holding the Council Presidency is a tremendous responsibility for any member state, including for France. In my own career, I have had the chance to follow this in 1995, 2000 and 2008. It has been 14 years since we last held the Presidency.

As the committee well knows, France sees its destiny very much in the EU and wants the European Union to grow as a political union based on democracy and the rule of law ensuring peace and prosperity to its 450 million citizens.

That is why France had an ambitious agenda for this Presidency, focusing on three key objectives, namely, recovery, strength and sense of belonging.

We believe the recovery chapter of the Presidency remains essential after two years of duress due to the Covid pandemic. We also believe that the EU has taken up the challenge by adopting and rolling out an historical recovery package of more than €800 billion and by co-ordinating the response against the pandemic, on vaccines in particular. As the committee well knows, where there is very little on health in the EU treaties except from a product quality or consumer protection point of view for pharmaceuticals, we have seen a remarkable political mobilisation around, first, vaccines, with procurement, but also with market authorisation and distribution to developing countries. The committee will remember that the EU has been not only ensuring a high degree of vaccination of its own population but it also has been the biggest donor worldwide. In addition, there has been co-ordination around free movement of people and as little limitation as possible to the free movement within the EU for sanitary reasons. On both accounts we believe the EU did well. Certainly, before the French Presidency, but including in the past months.

Second, high on our agenda, as kind of a catchword, is strength. It is vocabulary which was not necessarily very associated with the EU before, but we believe that this was very much needed. War is very sadly back on the European Continent and the threats are many. Against this background, the European Union has been remarkably united, swift and resolute in front of the Russian aggression on Ukraine by imposing unprecedented sanctions on the decision-makers in Russia, by supporting Ukraine militarily with a €2 billion military aid package and by extending up to €9 billion in financial and macro-financial aid for the years to come. The EU also has made a leap forward by adopting the so-called EU strategic compass back in March, which is a roadmap to beef up the European defence with as many as 72 concrete projects to be implemented in the three years to come, based on a common strategic threat analysis.

The EU is also affirming its strategic thinking by reinforcing its dialogue in co-operation with Africa. A summit between the European Union and the African Union took place in Paris in February to intensify co-operation across the board with Africa as a whole as a political organisation.

A ministerial conference between the EU and European ministers from the so-called Indo-Pacific region took place in March to share analysis and reaffirm the opinion and interest in the Indo-Pacific region, which is a region that is strategically so important for peace and prosperity in Europe.

After recover and strength, our third kind of catchword, if I may call it such, is the sense of belonging. The European Union, as the committee well knows, is a political union designed to serve its citizens, not against their wish and will, but with their democratic support. In this respect, the French Presidency has launched several cultural initiatives, with writers, thinkers and youths to nurture the human dimension of the European project, based on diversity, pluralism and multilingualism. I will name two initiatives. We invited, for example, two pupils from each and every member state, certainly also including from Ireland, to go to Strasbourg, spend a few days there and share their expectation on education and Europe's future. We also invited academics from all EU member states to share their thinking about Europe’s future. For Ireland, it was the provost of Trinity College. Also, the Conference on the Future of Europe, which was concluded on 9 May, certainly was a unique opportunity to let European citizens express directly their expectations and aspirations about Europe.

Beyond these key political objectives, the French Presidency was also about pushing the ambitious European legislative agenda built around climate and digital transition. Just perhaps to remind members, as they probably well know, at a given day in Europe, there are as many as 200 or more legislative texts in the legislative pipeline. Therefore, when we started our Presidency on 1 January, we knew that we would not be able to, of course, adopt all the 200 texts, because the legislative process in Europe takes more than six months between the Commission proposal, the First Reading by the Council, the First Reading by the Parliament and, if necessary, a trilogue and Second Reading. We wanted and were determined to push certain agenda, certainly on climate and digital transition. We believe that the result now, close to six months later, is pretty impressive, because many landmark items of legislation have been adopted or have been subject to political agreements between Council and European Parliament. Again, just to name a few, on climate action, there were as many as 13 texts to translate legally the so-called Fit for 55 agenda. We are pushing this across the board. We also achieved a political agreement on the establishment of a so-called carbon border adjustment mechanism, which will create a level playing field between businesses established in the EU and subject to carbon pricing on the one hand and those located outside the EU that are currently not subject to the same rules and climate-friendly measures on the other. There was a political agreement on this, even though of course this text also now will be considered within the larger package of climate change legislation, particularly what we call the emission trading system, ETS, for buildings and transport.

On trade, the EU has added a so-called anti-coercion mechanism to its toolbox and will have greater leverage to get access to international public procurement markets. This was much needed to restore a level playing field between, in particular, Europe on the one hand, but also the US and China on the other where, as the committee knows, our companies had no access to public procurement in those two big trade partners, but asymmetrically, American and Chinese companies had full access to our public procurement. Public procurement in Europe is a multibillion euro market.

On digital, the political agreement on the so-called Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, two key pieces of legislation to ensure fair competition in the digital industry and increase accountability of large players on harmful content, were very important decisions which will not only better protect European citizens and competition in Europe, but also set benchmarks globally. Agreements were also found on the establishment of a minimum wage around the same principle in all EU member states. This measure is socially progressive and will prevent a race to the bottom at European level when it comes to salaries. Anecdotally, even though it is probably important also in the long term for citizens and consumers, an agreement was found on a universal charging cable. This is also a decision that will prove that the EU is delivering for citizens and setting global standards.

More generally, and I will conclude with this, the French Presidency was the occasion, thanks also to the receding pandemic, to organise hundreds of meetings in France at Head of State and Government level, ministerial level and high official levels to share analysis, compare approaches and set common objectives. This is what ultimately the EU is about on a daily basis for decision-makers and officials.

The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and many members of the Irish Cabinet participated in these events organised throughout France. Ireland's point of view and contribution are much sought after and important in the decision-making process. Ireland's testimony after 50 years of EU membership is a superb illustration of what EU belonging can do best.

Here in Ireland, the French Embassy co-ordinated the work of EU member state embassies around three kinds of activities. First, at ambassadorial level I had the privilege to chair meetings twice per month with high-level guests. We invited the Tánaiste and several Cabinet Ministers, including Deputies Eamon Ryan, Paschal Donohoe, Michael McGrath and Stephen Donnelly, and the Minister of State, Senator Hackett. We also involved other political figures, the chairwoman of Sinn Féin and high-ranking officials like the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces and the Data Protection Commissioner.

These were closed-door meetings between ambassadors and guests but we also had events for members of academia. We held a conference on plurilingualism in March, introduced by the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, and one on how to feel European while having national and local identities. This conference was held in Galway with guest speakers from Galway, the west of Ireland, Brittany and Galicia in Spain.

We had a few events for a broader public. On 9 May, Europe Day, the screening of so-called short shorts took place online and physically in Dublin and Cork. Those short films were directed by various European directors. On the same day, it was an honour and privilege for me and my fellow European ambassadors to join Cabinet Ministers, Deputies Coveney and Michael McGrath, in Cork and visit some schools. Our message to the pupils was simple: Europe is a project of peace and prosperity, based on values. In the current global context, our message was to say we are stronger together.

I thank members for their kind attention, belatedly congratulate Ireland for 50 years of membership and, with my national hat on again, say how pleased we are to be Ireland's closest EU neighbour.