Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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I welcome the initiative of the Chairman and the committee in the production of a paper on the involvement of national parliaments in the European semester process. It is a very important that national parliaments, which have traditionally had the primary function in regard to national budgets, should take an active role at the co-ordination level in respect of the first semester process and economic co-ordination. I appreciate the initiative that has been taken.

The Chairman asked about Ukraine. I welcome the mission by Mr. Cox and Mr. Kwasniewski and I hope their efforts will be successful in creating the conditions to make progress possible. Ukraine is not up for discussion at the General Affairs Council but it is regularly discussed at the Foreign Affairs Council. In that case, the lead is taken by the High Representative, Catherine Ashton, and the European External Action Service. I attended a meeting in conjunction with a recent meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council with Friends of Ukraine, where we had a good dialogue with the Ukrainian foreign Minister. The EU summit with Ukraine was held last month. The joint statement issued from the summit reaffirmed the three conditions set in December for progress on Ukraine's relations with the EU. The three issues are the EU reform programme, the issue of selective justice and the implementation of the recommendations of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR, on the conduct of elections. It is a matter for Ukraine to make progress on these three areas in the coming months. A meeting of the EU-Ukraine Cooperation Council will take place in June and Ireland will chair it as part of the Presidency. That meeting will review the progress that has been made. The intention is that, if sufficient progress is made, the association agreement could be signed at the eastern partnership summit in Vilnius in November.

I thank Senator Leyden for his compliments in respect of H.E. Rory Montgomery and his team. I take the opportunity of these kind remarks to pay tribute to the team at the Permanent Representation in Brussels. In comparison with teams often in place for a Presidency, ours is relatively small. That team and the officials in my Department and the Department of the Taoiseach, who have been working on the Presidency, deserve great credit. The same applies to all Departments. During the course of the Presidency, we will chair 1,600 meetings. For obvious reasons, most are at official level. When we are talking about progress being made on issues, great credit is due to the Irish civil servants and diplomats involved in that work.

Senator Leyden mentioned the West Bank and Gaza, which is more a matter for the Foreign Affairs Council than the General Affairs Council. However, it is an issue to which the Foreign Affairs Council has been giving much attention.

There is also the danger of further illegal settlements being established which would make it physically impossible for the two-state solution to be put in place. There is a window of opportunity in the aftermath of the American and Israeli elections for some progress to be made on this matter. I met with the new US Secretary of State, John Kerry, in Rome last Wednesday, along with other European foreign affairs Ministers. One of the issues we discussed was the prospect of a renewed effort being made by both the European Union and the United States to get the sides together and discussions under way on this long-protracted issue. I know the US President, Mr. Obama, and the Secretary of State, Mr. Kerry, are due to visit Israel in the near future. This is an item that is high on the European agenda.

Regarding dialogue between the UK and Argentina, there is a good European Union-Latin America-Caribbean partnership. I attended the European Union-Latin America-Caribbean summit in Santiago, Chile, several weeks ago and I would see the issue being pursued in that context.

Deputy O'Reilly referred to the successes we have had and I thank him for his kind remarks. What was agreed at trialogue level between the Presidency, the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission is known as the capital requirements directives, CRD, IV package. This is an agreement that is about more than bankers' bonuses. It is largely to do with the need for improved regulation in banking in Europe and to ensure the banks' capital requirements are adequate. The issue of setting a ratio limit on the bonuses that can be paid as against salary was one of the issues included in this package. It is before the ECOFIN meeting today but I am not sure what progress has been made because I did not get an up-to-date brief on this coming into the meeting.

It has been agreed that €6 billion will be provided for the youth guarantee in the multi-annual financial framework, MFF. The principles of the guarantee were agreed at the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council, EPSCO, chaired by the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, last week. The provision in the MFF is for those member states where the level of youth unemployment is higher than 25%. Ireland, unfortunately, is one of those. However, it means we will benefit from the moneys provided for in the MFF. The exact detail of how the guarantee will operate has still to be worked out and will be pursued by the Minister for Social Protection and the EPSCO.

The MFF was agreed at Council level by the 27 member states. It now needs to get the approval of the European Parliament. There is a process that is under way. The MFF will be considered by a plenary meeting of the European Parliament later this month. Following that, I expect there will be a period of negotiation with the European Parliament, which will be led by the Irish Presidency. I have already started these discussions, as I met with Alain Lamassoure, MEP, in Dublin last week when he was leading a contact group on behalf of the Parliament. The Taoiseach and I, along with the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, also met with the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, and the Commission President, José Manuel Barroso. Following that meeting, I met with the Council President, Herman Van Rompuy, in London. The process of engagement with the European Parliament is already under way. Our objective, obviously, is to have the matter concluded and agreed by the end of our Presidency. It will be a challenge because a majority of the Parliament, 378 Members, must be secured for the budget to be approved. As in any parliamentary situation, if one is trying to get an overall majority one has to factor in absences and those who will vote against the budget for one reason or another. This will be a significant challenge for us in the months ahead.

Deputy Donohoe raised the matter of the conflict in Syria. Again, it was the top issue at the last meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council. The bloodshed and carnage continues there. One encouraging development is the indication from the leader of the Syrian opposition coalition, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, that he will engage in dialogue at some level with the Assad regime, and there is potential for building on that. We have argued for the situation in Syria to be referenced to the International Criminal Court and for an investigation into it to be carried out by the court. Ireland is among several European countries which have argued for this. One of the issues agreed at the last Council was the extension of sanctions. A question that arises is to what extent the continuation of the sanctions regime should apply to the arms embargo. We have taken the view that the situation there should not be further militarised and increasing the amount of arms and military equipment is not the way to go. However, there are some member states which are of the view that the arms embargo should be lifted or relaxed in some way.

The agreement in the MFF provided for €87.648 billion in funding for external relations, an increase of €2.31 billion on current funding. At least 90% of EU spending on external relations must qualify as official development assistance. The agreement ensures the European Union and its member states will remain the largest provider of official development assistance for the remainder of the decade. Our aim in the negotiations was to ensure a fair proportion of the EU budget was allocated to development and humanitarian assistance.

The target date for the coming into effect of the single banking supervisory mechanism is 1 March 2014. We are working on the legislative measures that have to be introduced to ensure this happens. We are hopeful that a significant amount of progress will be made on that by the end of our Presidency.