Mr. Frans Timmermans:

-----strong qualified majority voting, QMV, is needed. The process can be discussed. Legally, it can be discussed. However, politically, these two processes will somehow be connected, to put it very mildly. In that sense, we need everyone on board if we want it to be successful, regardless of all the legal questions we might have.

I fully share Deputy Crowe's analysis when he says that people do not feel the recovery. I appreciate that a lot. I also see it in the country I know best. That is a country that was not hit as hard by crisis as Ireland was. That is a country with just 5% unemployment, probably zero budget deficit this year and rapidly declining public debt. Still, people feel that they are living in a country in deep crisis and that the bankers are doing well again but the people are not. One of the reasons why populism is so much on the rise is that across the EU many people, especially in the middle classes, feel that it is no longer about them. They feel that it is about the rich people, the bankers, the multinationals and not about them. If we are incapable of proving to our voters that this is about them, that they are reflected in our policy and that they will see light at the end of the tunnel, they will sooner or later be tempted by the very easy solutions of the populists who say that it is about us, that we should close our societies to differences and remove those who are responsible for our problems. This divisive and almost xenophobic attitude is on the rise, and not because people are xenophobes or racists, but because they are desperate. They do not see that their interests are reflected enough in our policies.

It people like Ms Le Pen, Mr. Wilders and others and their ideologies that are to blame for this and not the people who vote for them because many of the people who vote for them would vote for somebody else if he or she had something to offer they could believe in. There is a lot for us to do across the political spectrum from left to right. All people of good will across the European Union need to come to terms with this challenge. It is interesting that in those countries hardest hit in the crisis there are almost no extreme right movements on the rise. People always say that the rise of such movements is linked to poverty but I am not so sure about that. Greece lost one-quarter of its wealth and while there is an extreme right movement in Greece it is marginal. There are no extreme right movements in Spain, Portugal, Cyprus or Ireland. It is an interesting phenomenon that it is in the richer countries of Europe that they are on the rise. This is not about what people have suffered but what they can expect for the future. We have a huge responsibility to offer a better view of the future that we have thus far.

On the anti-corruption report, the Commission decided not to revisit the 2014 exercise in relation to the anti-corruption report. Personally, I was a little disappointed that this stood apart from all of the other policies, such that anti-corruption would be discussed only in the framework of the anti-corruption report. I want this to be mainstreamed. I want anti-corruption to be part of other reports such as our economic forecasts for member states and other reports in relation to member states. It should not be set apart. I am still in a debate with the European Parliament on this matter. I will need to prove to Emily O'Reilly and others that we can do a better job by mainstreaming our fight against corruption rather than having it set apart in a report. The onus is on me to prove that we can do that. Romania is an interesting case. As soon as the population of Romania got the impression that the Government was going to be lax on anti-corruption they took to the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets and the Government changed course and overturned its decision. There is a strong appetite in all member states for the fight against corruption. It is always one of the top items in our euro barometer research, particularly in those states that are still suffering a lot of corruption. We need to stand by the people who want corruption to be removed from the public sphere.

On agreements with other countries and the replication of the Turkish agreement, the Turkish agreement cannot be replicated because the circumstances are not comparable. When it comes to Turkey and Libya, the only thing we need to do that is comparable is break the backbone of the smuggling operation. We need to stop smugglers putting people on boats, which puts them at high risk of drowning in the Mediterranean. That is unacceptable. We need to fight the smuggling rings and to do that with determination. We also need to have arrangements in place with the countries of origin such that they take back people who do not have the right to international protection, or prevent people from leaving by giving them a better perspective. We also need to have arrangements with the countries bordering the Mediterranean so that we jointly fight illegal migrant. That is what we need to do but it is not comparable to what we have done with Turkey. The deal we have with Turkey is working. We have been able to improve the living conditions of Syrians living in Turkey, including through increased access to education and work. Their living conditions have also been improved and they have greater access than ever to health care. We have never been able to disburse so much money in such a brief period of time as in the case of the Syrian refugees in Turkey.

On multi-speed Europe, much depends on how one defines that. Some would define multi-speed Europe as a bunch of countries setting up something entirely new and going off in their own direction. I would interpret it as being similar to what happens in the areas of economic and monetary union, the euro and justice and home affairs. We all travel in the same direction but not necessarily at the same speed. In some areas, if it is not convenient to do so, then a country does not participate in the next phase of co-operation. That is how I would interpret multi-speed Europe. It is a way of keeping Europe together, it is not a way of creating divisions in the European Union. We have good experience of this in the past. Ireland has chosen not to be part of the Schengen area because of its special conditions. That is an acceptable example of multi-speed Europe.

We depend on the goodwill of the EU, the UK and Ireland but it is in all our interests that we, as a Commission, prove to Ireland that we can be its best advocates and representatives in those negotiations such that it should not have to engage in bilateral negotiations. On market differentiation, it is a good idea regardless of what happens. It would be a good idea to review our Structural Funds policy. On partnerships with people, I am not sure how that would pan out. For example, in the context of the European Fund for Strategic Investment, EFSI, or the "Juncker fund", in a country such as France, never before have SMEs had such direct access to European funds. Never before have we been able to create a direct relationship between the European Investment Bank and local entrepreneurs in all parts of France. That is working well. For the first time, SMEs have direct access to European investment. Under EFSI, the European Investment Bank approved four agreements with financial intermediaries. Financing totals €106 million and is expected to trigger €589 million in investment. Some 2,900 small companies or start-ups will benefit from this support. In terms of partnerships with people that is the direction we should be going.