Ms Barbara Nolan:

Yes. It is the same for everybody else. Each member state is under the same semester process unless it is in a programme. I can confirm that it will be 15 October for draft budgetary plans next year.

The social dimension of economic and monetary union should not be forgotten. It is also a priority, and this reflects the importance of the need for a more cohesive economic and monetary union for European society as a whole. I do not propose to go into this now as the committee is due to discuss this issue next week with Mr. Koos Richelle, Director General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. I will leave this to one side because it is his particular area of expertise and responsibility.

The second area I wish to mention is making the best use of the EU budget. A central element of the Commission's growth and jobs agenda is to maximise the effectiveness of the EU budget, the so-called multi-annual financial framework, MFF, and all of the programmes that will now be rolled out in that context. The Commission is committed to working with the European Council and the Parliament to ensure that this budget swiftly becomes operational. The necessary structures and programmes must also be put in place at national level so that we can deliver funding and help projects to get off the ground. Provided this is done quickly, it will provide a real boost to the European economy. I am delighted to report that in the early hours of this morning, after a marathon negotiation session, agreement was reached between the European Parliament and the Council on the 2014 EU budget, which is a crucial step towards the full final adoption of the MFF for the period from 2014 to 2020. We can now move forward.

The overall goal for the budget is to boost investment and employment, particularly for the young. On this latter point, the implementation of the youth guarantee is of great importance, with 5.5 million young people in the EU currently unemployed. The youth guarantee means that member states should ensure that all young people under 25 are either in employment, education, training or an apprenticeship within four months of leaving formal education or becoming unemployed. In this regard, the Commission is looking forward to receiving Ireland's implementation plan for this initiative before the end of the year. The Taoiseach is attending a meeting in Paris today which is the second in a series of meetings convened to focus on youth unemployment. The first meeting was held in Germany, presided over by Chancellor Merkel. My understanding is that the Taoiseach is focusing his remarks on the need for digital skills. Unfortunately, I do not have a read-out of that meeting, but I am sure reports on what happened will be available later today.

On the investment front, funding for research and innovation is also vital, with Horizon 2020 centre stage. Enterprise Ireland, in co-operation with the Commission and particularly Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn, will host the launch of Horizon 2020 in Ireland on 10 December next in the Convention Centre, Dublin. Ireland has a very good track record in winning research funding and has set itself a target of securing €1 billion under Horizon 2020. Mobilisation of the entire research community has already started and the latest available information will be disseminated at the aforementioned conference in December. Supporting SMEs is also of particular importance. In that context, I would flag the fact that the European Investment Bank has an increasing role in supporting access to finance for SMEs. We must advertise that fact more throughout the EU for the benefit of SMEs.

In the context of completing the single market, I will focus on two areas in particular which we consider to be vital to support growth - namely, telecommunications and energy. On telecommunications, in September 2013 the Commission adopted a proposal Connected Continent: Building a Telecommunications Single Market. This telecommunications package will make it easier for operators to work across borders, improve consumer rights and more generally boost productivity. Altogether, the single market in telecommunications could be worth €110 billion a year and a world-class digital infrastructure could boost productivity by 5%. At the EU summit last month, EU leaders called for timely adoption of the telecommunications package. They recognised that the digital economy is vital to jobs and they put the digital agenda at the heart of their economic plans. They also called for action to complete the digital single market by 2015 and said that urgency was needed. With the European Parliament elections in May and a digital world that is moving on rapidly, I am happy to report that the relevant committees in the Parliament have already started work on this package. However, it is hard to see how this work can be completed before the Parliament rises in advance of the election. On energy, all consumers should have access to a fully integrated energy market by 2014. The focus in 2014 will be on the energy retail market, to ensure that consumers can tap into the benefits of the internal energy market.

The justice and security dossiers have become an increasingly important element of the Commission's work. The Commission has a number of proposals on the table and negotiations are under way between the Council and the European Parliament on some of these. A particularly important file is the new data protection package, and the Irish Presidency is to be congratulated on the sterling work it did on this. It is hoped that this package will emerge from the legislative process with a vote during the Parliament's last plenary session in April.

On the external agenda, the EU has a key role to play in tackling crises. The EU is collectively the largest donor of global development assistance and humanitarian aid in the world. It was announced today that an additional €10 million would be given to the Philippines to deal with the crisis there following the typhoon. Promoting peace and security remains a pillar of the EU's external action programme. EU efforts in the ongoing crisis in Syria will continue, including the provision of assistance to the civilian population, support for attempts to bring all sides in the conflict to a peace conference and support for the Syrian mission of the UNOPCW, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

On the trade front, committee members will know about the launch of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership negotiations, which was one of the highlights of the Irish Presidency. EU and US officials are holding another round of negotiations this week. The aim is to remove trade barriers, making it easier to buy and sell goods between the EU and the US.

My final point is on the REFIT initiative, the Commission's regulatory fitness and performance programme. This relates to President Barroso's message in his so-called State of the Union speech, in which he said that the EU needed to be "big on big things and small on smaller things".

Basically, his message was that where Europe cannot add value, it should not meddle.

In many cases, common rules are good because they are essential to making the Single Market work properly and protecting consumers, the environment and other public interests, as well as actually reducing red tape. For example, why saddle business with 28 different sets of regulations and standards in the Single Market when we could just have one? The European Commission has been listening to concerns on burdensome EU regulation for some time. In the past five years, it has slashed administrative burdens by €32 billion and scrapped 5,590 legal Acts. However, we are determined to go further. Under REFIT, the regulatory fitness and performance programme, the Commission has identified further measures to simplify or withdraw legislation and issues where we will not act at European level. These cover a wide range of areas, including consumer product safety, public procurement, clinical trials of pharmaceuticals, package holidays and food hygiene. For example, on the latter, rules will be consolidated and simplified and greater flexibility granted to small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, in how they meet them.

Next year will be an eventful one for the EU's institutions. The European Parliament elections, in particular, will have a significant impact on the legislative timetable. The window for getting things done is fairly small. As the elections will take place in May, the last plenary session of the current European Parliament is to be in April. Accordingly, April will be the final deadline for any vote or endorsement by the current European Parliament before a gap in the EU's legislative process. In September, the focus will be the formation of the next European Commission. If all goes according to plan, a new European Commission will be in place on 1 November 2014. Work on a new work programme for 2015 can then begin in earnest.