Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I congratulate the Vice Chairman on his appointment.

I am delighted to have this opportunity to brief members on the forthcoming General Affairs Council meeting which will take place in Luxembourg next Tuesday. I will also use it to provide them with a brief update on some of the visits I have made and the work in which I have been involved since I last attended the committee.

Before looking ahead to the General Affairs Council meeting, I will give a brief report on the meeting of the Council that took place on 30 September. When I was here last, we discussed members' considerations and views. Given the issues that were raised, it is appropriate to provide an update of what happened at the meeting and the current state of play.

As members will recall, the main issue at the time related to the cohesion policy legislative package. Negotiations were ongoing with the European Parliament and they are still taking place. At the meeting member states strongly stressed the importance of preserving the agreements on the multi-annual financial framework reached during the Irish Presidency and the need for early agreement. However, some limited room for flexibility was indicated in an effort to seek agreement with the European Parliament.

Ministers also held an initial discussion on the agenda items for the European Council meeting on 24 and 25 October. These topics will be explored more fully at the meeting next week. My colleague, Mr. David Lidington, MP, UK Minister of State, will briefly update the General Affairs Council on the ongoing balances of competences review which the British Government is undertaking.

I will represent Ireland at next week's General Affairs Council meeting. One of the duties of the Council is to prepare for the European Council meetings that take place at the same time. Therefore, the main item on our agenda will be the preparations for the European Council meeting that will take place at the end of next week. My first comment on the European Council agenda is that it is very similar to the provisional agenda announced by President Van Rompuy some time ago. This is very welcome as it at least a sign of returned stability. Not long ago, each European Council meeting was inevitably taken over by the crisis of the day, with less time being devoted to discussions to develop long-term plans for the European Union and to make sure we put in place the right framework to ensure the crisis we were in was better dealt with and prevented in the future. That relative stability I have mentioned, albeit still fragile, has recently freed the European Union from crisis management and allows us to keep the focus where it should be, on policies that will deliver jobs and growth. In line with the priorities of the Irish Presidency earlier this year, the European Council will look at the high potential digital sector, youth employment and what can be done to help SMEs. The work to complete the stabilisation of Europe's economies also continues, with a discussion on Economic and Monetary Union. For Ireland, the completion of banking union is a fundamental priority in which momentum must be fully maintained. I will come back to that issue.

Next week's General Affairs Council meeting will, as on previous occasions, consider a draft set of European Council conclusions. The President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, will join GAC Ministers for this discussion. Among the conclusions is the link between the digital sector and youth employment, with young people the main beneficiaries of the growth we can achieve in that area. As a major centre for both home-grown and foreign digital sector companies, Ireland is perfectly positioned to contribute to this debate on the digital sector, as we did in the hosting of the digital assembly in June. It is fitting that we meet today just ahead of the Dublin web summit, now a major global gathering of technology leaders and innovators. On that note, I will briefly go through the European Council agenda, starting with the digital economy, innovation and services.

The key focus of the European Council will be the political debate on the digital economy, innovation and services. We support strongly this. It also aligns well with our own strengthening domestic policy focus on entrepreneurship and skills development. With Europe facing unacceptably high levels of unemployment, the reality is that most new jobs are created by fast growing young firms. That is why we see it as entirely appropriate that the European Council keep at the very top of its agenda the issue of creating the right conditions for supporting these new growth areas. The compact for growth and jobs provides the key backdrop for this discussion. It sets a clear goal of having a well functioning digital single market by 2015.

The European Commission estimates that the digital economy is growing at seven times the rate of the rest of the economy, but its potential is being held back by a patchy pan-European policy framework. That is why we placed such a strong emphasis on this area during our Presidency in the first half of the year. This included important progress on the collective rights management, e-identification, data protection, cyber-security and web accessibility files, as well as completing the European Network and Information Security Agency and public sector information legislation. As I mentioned, we also hosted a very successful digital agenda assembly in Dublin Castle in June. It was addressed by the Taoiseach and it was the first time the event had been held outside Brussels. I expect the workshop outputs from the digital agenda assembly to feed into European Council's preparations, particularly in identifying key bottlenecks and the next steps we need to take. There is clearly much more that we need to do to make sure our market rules keep pace with the 21st century reality. This includes further progress in the copyright and data protection areas, taking a forward-looking and growth-oriented perspective. We need to recognise clearly the role of coherent market rules in supporting trust and confidence in digital growth areas. We must also be careful to avoid new administrative requirements that would impose disproportionate burdens on the job creating engine of the economy.

A further priority concern is unlocking necessary investment in next-generation broadband infrastructure, where fragmented market rules remain a problem. I expect that discussion will be informed by the "Connected Continent" proposals for a single telecommunications market presented in early September. President Barroso identified this as the most ambitious telecommunications market reform in 26 years, contrasting the internal market in goods with the 28 national markets in telecommunications and digital services. The proposals aim for simplified rules for market operators; removing roaming charges and international call premiums; stronger protection for an open Internet, or net neutrality; harmonized consumer rights; co-ordinated 4G spectrum assignment; and more certainty for investors on pricing policies. Ireland has conveyed its broad support for the Commission's proposals, while also highlighting particular sensitivities for smaller and peripheral member states.

We see the skills agenda as a hugely important focus in realising the full potential of the digital economy. The reality is that there are already signs of growing skills shortages in this sector, with some estimates suggesting over one quarter of employers across Europe find it difficult to fill jobs. At a time of unacceptably high unemployment, we clearly need to do more to align the supply of skills with the needs of the labour market of today and tomorrow. Progress can build from the grand coalition for digital jobs launched during our Presidency in March which identified a potential 900,000 unfilled ICT vacancies in Europe by 2015. Discussion on innovation policy will be informed by the Competitiveness Council meeting that took place at the end of September. It is clear from that discussion that European business research and development continue to lag behind main competitors; the European research area is still too fragmented; there is further room for convergence of innovation and research performance across member states; and Europe's new firms are growing more slowly than in the United States and failing to join the ranks of the world's largest firms. A more structured approach is also needed for public sector innovation. This is an area of particular interest to Ireland, having secured political agreement on the new Horizon 2020 package under our Presidency in June.

Tackling youth unemployment continues to be an enormously important priority of the European Union and Ireland. The European Council will review progress on implementing the investment plan agreed in June and towards having the youth employment initiative fully operational from the beginning of 2014. This was an area in which significant progress was made under the Irish Presidency.

There will also be initial political reactions to the Commission's proposals on regulatory fitness, as presented at the beginning of this month.

I wish to address the issue of Economic and Monetary Union. With a view to further discussions in December, the European Council will return to the theme of Economic and Monetary Union. In particular, the Council will assess progress in the completion of elements of banking union. It will also have initial discussions on other aspects of EMU, including economic policy co-ordination and the social dimension. The European Commission has just published its own communication on the social dimension of the European Union. A system for the supervision of cross-border banks in the form of the single supervisory mechanism was agreed under the Irish Presidency. This mechanism will enter into force in early November and the ECB will take over full responsibility 12 months later.

The rules governing how banks are to be resolved, framed in the bank recovery and resolution directive were successfully concluded at the Council under the Irish Presidency and negotiations continue with the European Parliament to reach a final compromise. In parallel, the current Lithuanian Presidency is also in discussions with the Parliament on the recast of the deposit guarantee scheme.

Our Lithuanian colleagues are seeking to reach agreement with Parliament on both the BRRD and the DCS by the end of the year.

A further element of the banking union is the Commission proposal for the single resolution mechanism which will apply the BRRD rule book to banks in SSM participating member states. That refers to countries inside the operation of a fully functioning banking union, to ensure clarity in dealing with the resolution of banks in any kind of difficulty. When I say "any kind of difficulty", I mean banks in very severe difficulty and the need to ensure that there is a clear framework on how to manage and deal with the cost of resolving that difficulty. Given that the June European Council concluded that negotiations in Council on the SRM should be completed by the end of the year, the Lithuanian Presidency established a high-level working group to examine the proposal. Colleagues in the Department of Finance are actively involved in this working group and while there are a number of complex issues to be addressed in the negotiations, I am hopeful that the Council can meet the deadline established by the Heads of State and Government.

The Lithuanian Presidency will brief the European Council on the state of play of preparations for the Eastern Partnership Summit, to take place in Vilnius from 28 to 29 November. The main business of the summit will be the initialling of association agreements with Moldova and Georgia and potentially the signing of the association agreement with Ukraine. The European Council may also consider additional foreign policy matters.

Following the session on the European Council, the General Affairs Council will have its first discussion on next year's European semester process, as the Vice Chairman mentioned. This will be informed by a synthesis report from the Lithuanian Presidency on lessons learned in 2013 and on any further procedural improvements that might be possible. The Presidency's synthesis report will be finalised, taking account of discussions this week at various Council formations. The committee will recall that the effective management of the European semester 2013 was an important focus for the Irish Presidency. This has provided a strong basis for exploring further ways in which the involvement of national parliaments in particular might be reinforced over the period ahead. We look forward in Ireland to full participation in the European semester 2014, following successful completion of our EU-IMF programme in December.

The General Affairs Council will adopt Council conclusions on the value and the added value of macro-regional strategies. These conclusions arise from, and are a response to, Commission communications in June of this year, which assessed the added value of macro-regional strategies through reviewing the implementation of existing macro-regional strategies for the Baltic Sea region and the Danube region. Although Ireland is not a participant in either of the existing strategies we very much support the concept and the added value such strategies can bring and can endorse the draft Council conclusions.

As colleagues will recall, we were very pleased during the Irish Presidency to have been able to inject a new momentum into the EU's accession negotiations with Turkey. We secured agreement in June on the opening of a new chapter, chapter 22 on regional policy. Due to some concerns about the situation in Turkey at the time, member states agreed that they would decide the date of the inter-governmental conference formally to open the chapter, later in the year, once the European Commission had published its annual progress report. The Commission's report was published yesterday.

I very much hope that the General Affairs Council will be able, next week, to confirm the date for formally opening this new chapter in negotiations with Turkey. I hope that the inter-governmental conference will then be able to take place shortly afterwards.

Having worked hard during our Presidency to reinvigorate Turkey's accession process and to get agreement among member states to open a new chapter for the first time in three years, we would like to see the process through to completion. I believe strongly that maintaining Turkey's EU perspective is vitally important to encouraging reforms in that country. Having opened this new chapter, I hope we can build on the momentum developed under the Irish Presidency to make further progress in Turkey's accession negotiations as well as deepening our overall relations with our strategic partner. That concludes my comments on the General Affairs Council.

I want to inform members too that since I last met them I have also had the opportunity to visit several member states to hold discussions with them on where things stand for our country, important policy priorities and how we can work together to deliver them. I also spent yesterday visiting the Northern Ireland Assembly to talk about the work taking place here in the Oireachtas and in Government on Europe and to have an exchange of views on that and other matters. The main part of that meeting comprised my giving evidence to the Committee for the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, which I did yesterday afternoon.

I thank the committee for giving me this opportunity to address it. I have taken a fair amount of time to do so, simply because there is a lot going on and I want to use this as an opportunity to ensure that the committee is up to speed on this and that I have an opportunity to hear its views.