H.E. Ms Raili Lahnalampi:

We hope that the sun will be shining. More seriously, I do not want to go into the details on Brexit has been dealt with or the case that the Senator raised. The Finnish Presidency has laid down some general principles of transparency and being open and working with all the members, not sitting in closed-door sessions with only some members present. Finland is known internationally as being a very transparent country. As I said, sometimes we are too straightforward and say what we mean.

On enlargement and its future, Finland's Minister has written an article which we will forward to committee members on this. Finland believes in a merit-based enlargement.

We believe that every candidate country should be looked at on its own merits. However, there are some political difficulties there because while every member state looks at the merits, we interpret them a bit differently. Finland has always been merit-based in its approach. We think enlargement is very important for the EU because it is part of our integration and peace process in eastern European countries as well. As such, we support enlargement, but we are looking at the merits of each and every candidate.

I have already discussed the trade issues, but if there are any other questions I encourage members to ask them.

I refer to the new European Commission. I learned yesterday that Ireland will be nominating its current Commissioner for a second term. I wish him all the best. For the first time, Finland will be putting forward a female Commissioner, Jutta Urpilainen, who is a former Finance Minister and a very capable MP. We hope she will also be awarded a strong and important position in the Commission. As a precedent, we do not want to comment on the timetable at this time, but it would be better to have a new Commission earlier rather than later.