Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I suggest the defeat of the treaty in France and The Netherlands is a serious setback for the constitutional treaty but it is not the first setback the European project has endured or experienced. On all previous occasions if the idea had merit and the proposals had positive content, they were implemented and agreed on a new horizon and in a different timeframe when a sufficient number of people could be persuaded to endorse them. Therefore, the period of reflection should be combined in two contexts. The first is to examine what we can do between now and 1 November 2007 and to examine the probability that the French and the Dutch, if their current political leaderships are to be taken at face value, will not put forward the same question on the same treaty to their people in the foreseeable future.

I have a few suggestions to make to the two Ministers and the Minister of State present, and they follow from the comments of my colleague, Deputy Allen, which I warmly support. The leadership of the European Union must be restored to the Commission. The President of the Commission must receive the encouragement and the support of all member states. In the past, particularly when Jacques Delors was the President, that support tended to come from the large dominant member states in a European Union of 12 and subsequently a Union of 15. The numerical composition of a European Union of 25 does not provide for the same kind of relationship to exist for a host of reasons, but there is a possibility of achieving that, and Ireland has a unique capability of having a leadership role in this regard. I say that in all sincerity and admiration for the achievements of the current Administration in terms of the friends of the community method and the group of 27 that the Minister of State, Deputy Treacy's predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Roche, succeeded in using in the run-up to his outstandingly successful achievement during the Irish Presidency in securing agreement on ratification by the 25 member states. I have said it previously and I am happy to say again that we must find a new way of instilling in President Barroso and his colleagues a sense of self-confidence, in the first instance, and of encouragement to bring forward proposals that will enable us get to the far side of Laeken and Nice that was set out and declared when those decisions were taken.

I will give a few examples of that, and I am on record as having said this to President Barroso in the Mansion House when we met last June. There are elements in the draft constitutional treaty, and I am subject to correction on this, that could be implemented by common agreement of the 25 member states. They address the concern about lack of openness and transparency in the decision-making process of the Council of Ministers when it meets as a legislature. I am not aware, and perhaps the Minister and the Minister of State present and their Department of Foreign Affairs personnel could advise me to the contrary, of any legal impediment that would prevent the Council of Ministers, when meeting in Council on legislative matters, from so doing in public. If that step was to be taken by agreement, it would probably require unanimity of the current members. However, since we have got agreement from those members on the draft treaty, such a proposal — to do in public what they do in private — could hardly be against the interests of the citizens of member states.

I suggest, for example, that there is a need for a stronger connection between the national parliaments and the European Union, and I will go into that in some detail when we resume after the sos. In essence, the unique hybrid that is the construction of the European Union, which is a combination of intergovernmentalism on the one hand and federalism on the other, does not carry through into the decision-making process of the Union as it currently exists. The decision-making process of the Commission proposing and the Council and the Parliament, now with a more equal relationship between the two, together deciding on what will become draft European laws and subsequently European laws, is uniquely a federal construct. It has none of the intergovernmentalism associated with decision-making in justice and home affairs matters or in respect of common foreign and security policy. Part of the political difficulty is that it is very difficult for the ordinary European citizen at national level to see the operation of political decision-making at a European level. That is not the fault of the MEPs in all our parties in their political groups in the Parliament or the fault of the Ministers who participate in decision-making, but we have to find a new way to bring the national parliaments closer to the decision-making process of the European project and to bring the decision-making process of Europe closer to politicians in this House and in every other national assembly of the member states.

I have a detailed set of proposals which were unanimously agreed by all my party colleagues at the Joint Committee on European Affairs some weeks ago. The suggestion is that in each of the three plenary sessions in all the member states there will be a dedicated European week in the national parliament. When the debate resumes I will outline how that would function. Effectively, we would close down national business in this House and concentrate on all those issues of European concern and interest to our members and our electorates.

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