Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I thank the ambassador for his comprehensive presentation - gracias- and the self-evident two years of enormous preparation for the Spanish Presidency, which is both ambitious and important. There is a huge range of issues. To enable everybody to deal with some, I will deal with a couple. The first is something which is important from our perspective. The ambassador mentioned that this is the last full Presidency of the European Council before next year's elections. That is an important issue in the context of the growth of euroscepticism across the EU. I was reading this morning about the most recent opinion polls in France and Germany, which are worrying for those of us who are pro-European. My first question is a little off-piste. Is there a strategy in advance of those elections to communicate to citizens the value and values of the EU? How is it proposed to do that? We all talk about delivering for citizens, and in many ways it is an in-house discussion, which we do not communicate well to people who do not feel the impact. Is there a strategy to build on Spain's declared and real support for the broadening and deepening development of the EU?

My second question is linked to that. It is about what is probably the biggest issue that will arise in coming months. It may well have a huge impact on the outcome of next year's elections, and therefore on the future direction of the EU. That is the issue of migration.

We have talked about it. Spain is very much on the front line of receiving migrants and having a direct land border on the continent of Africa, as the Chairman has said. I would be interested in hearing His Excellency's thoughts on how that matter can be handled in the coming months so that it does not become like the Brexit referendum, where there were the outrageous posters about mass immigration and what would happen if Britain did not leave the European Union. How do we counteract that?

I am intrigued by the ambition of reindustrialisation for Europe. We are aware of the American Inflation Reduction Act, IRA, which is going to deploy hundreds of billion of dollars to bring back to the United States fundamental manufacturing, including chip and electric battery manufacturing. How exactly does His Excellency see the reindustrialisation of Europe happening in the context of the enormous sums of money being deployed in the United States to bring it about there?