Professor Gavin Barrett:

Regarding the lack of appetite for treaty change, there is a collision between the objective need for treaty change, driven by factors I mentioned. Many of the provisions are outdated. The provisions for economic and monetary union date back to 1991. They are several decades old and have been superseded by non-European Union treaties, soft law and secondary legislation to an extent that, democratically, it would be better to have some of that in the actual treaties.

There was a series of crises. Take, for instance, the role of the European Union in health matters and vaccinations. There is huge co-ordination at European Union level, yet if you look at treaty provisions on health measures, it just describes the European Union's role as a supporting competence. It is not reflected in reality. Health institutions have been created that need to be reflected in the treaties. There is also the enlargement process coming up. All of these factors drive treaty change. There is not huge appetite for treaty change, which you could see in the reaction to the Conference on the Future of Europe. Thirteen states: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden, all said they did not want treaty change at that point. There is a collision there. It is a question of needs must. That is what drives treaty change, not the citizens of Europe rising up and demanding it. That is not where it is coming from.

The second question was if we could get by without treaty amendment and it if would be possible to get by on the existing treaty provisions. In von der Leyen's state of the union address, she said enlargement can happen without treaty change. If it were possible to do it, she would be happy to. Similarly, in recent European Council conclusions, it did not mention the words "treaty change" or the "T" word or words. Objectively, there is an element of the second-best solution about keeping away from treaty change. We will see a proposal; it is coming down the tracks. We will have to see what happens. It is possible it will run into the ground in the same way as the constitutional treaty amendment and replacement treaty provision proposals, but it will have to come. There is too much noise about this at the moment for it not to take place.

I am a fan of one Commissioner per member state myself because as much for the Commission's sake as anything, it keeps the Commission grounded. In terms of awareness it is a very good thing to have one Commissioner per member state but I cannot ignore the fact that an awful lot of people think that it is inefficient to have 27 Commissioners. There are not enough jobs for the lot of them and there is not a cabinet in Europe that has 27 members. It is just too big for that. There are two arguments related to it. Ireland's position prevailed because of the Lisbon referendum in that regard. There was not actually a treaty change related to it but the discretion of the European Council was exercised to maintain the Commission at the size it is at. I cannot say there is not still controversy about this and in my view it will be revisited. It will be looked at again in the context of treaty negotiations.

On assistance to Ukraine, there is less worry about a Hungarian veto in this regard than one would expect. I have seen references in the media to states saying they are comfortable there is a workaround, which will involve something of the same workaround that was initially used to provide financial assistance to member states during the crisis. That is, that it would be provided in individual member state business. In reality they are acting together but they just leave Hungary out of it. I think that is what will be used to get around that.

Deputy Haughey is correct that the big jobs situation is very unseemly. It reminds me of Churchill's quote about democracy and to some extent the European Union is the worst possible solution, except for all the others. At times, it ain't pretty and there is no doubt about it. We just need to remember the alternative in that regard. As regards the appointments procedure, Dr. Colfer has already dealt with that. The European Parliament has increased its powers in every single treaty reform we have seen as it goes along and to some extent I am not a fan of the Spitzenkandidat process to be honest and I am not a fan of the proposals that have been put forward for increasing its own powers in the latest report.