Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witness. Mr. Vurm has dealt with what we would see as the major issues. Obviously, these are security concerns and the very much changed world following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We do not know how that is going to work out. All we know is that it is a much smaller and far more dangerous world. There was much talk even before it, throughout the pandemic, of European or EU strategic autonomy. We all saw the difficulties around semiconductors. While this is something we need and is required, we do not want the EU to become protectionist per se.

Mr. Vurm answered a question on what we all want to see as regards dealing with the cost-of-living crisis, particularly where it crosses over with the energy crisis, that is, the idea of the EU doing what Deputy Howlin said it did well during the pandemic which is to block buy and make sure we have the supply line of fuel and the storage. We need to emphasise that the European block needs to move to renewables as quickly as it can for multiple reasons. I ask Mr. Vurm's for his views on that.

We have been dealing with the issue of accession. We had a trip to Georgia in the last while. It did not get great news from its point of view but it has a roadmap to follow no more than Ukraine and Moldova do. It is going to be a long and arduous road. Some of that is made long as well by the rule of law issues within Europe. I ask Mr. Vurm for his opinion on that. Where does he see these issues from the Presidency's point of view? We have to get our own house in order while maintaining the balance and co-operation that has been shown to be useful. Some of it is the outworkings of the Conference on the Future of Europe and the convention. Some of it has been caught up in the whole argument of qualified majority voting versus unanimity. To a degree, I think this is a wrong turn. We showed during the pandemic that we could co-operate when we all opted into something we could agree on. As difficult as it is, we showed we are able to come together on sanctions and so on.