Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

Before the debate was adjourned, I referred to the need for European citizens to reconnect with the European project and the realisation that the federal structure implicit in the decision making nature of the Council, the Commission and the Parliament was not meeting that task in the media coverage of European politics in the 25 member states. I welcome the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his officials.

Three weeks ago, the Joint Committee on European Affairs agreed an uncontentious proposal I initiated to bridge the gap between the perception and the political reality, which is that 70% of the legislation dealt with in the Parliaments of member states originates in the European institutions in Brussels. How can reportage be generated locally, which reflects the scrutiny given by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament to the same legislation when it originates in the Commission? There is only so much space and time for European affairs because of the commercialisation of the media since Mr. Murdoch and others took over the main media outlets. Coverage is limited on RTE and in broadsheet newspapers to what happens in the Houses of the Oireachtas. If we do not "Europeanise" time, European affairs will not receive the coverage required and our citizens will feel they are not properly informed about what is happening.

My proposal, copies of which I will make available if Members wish, is that there should be a European week during every plenary session. Questions to all the Ministers would have a European dimension. For example, a question to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government could be about the implementation of the Building Control Bill and how the European directive on energy and new buildings would be implemented, which is a requirement under European law directly originating from European legislation at a European level, transposed into domestic law. We would focus on that. Questions to the Minister for Agriculture and Food, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs and so on would be prioritised in terms of matters which related to European issues or those originating from a European directive or proposal.

On a Wednesday morning in this House we would have a commissioner who would sit where the Minister for Foreign Affairs now sits, for example, Laszlo Kovacs, the commissioner responsible for taxation within the Commission, or any commissioner other than the Irish commissioner, who would be somewhere else. Any national parliament would not have its national commissioner sitting. The commissioner sitting in this House, for example Laszlo Kovacs, would talk about the vexed issues of taxation, harmonisation, the current stress on the US Treasury by the IRS with regard to what they — not us — would see as the abuse of our taxation system, and how it is being used for transfer pricing; and all the pressures and internal competitions that relate to the issues of harmonisation and a common platform for the measuring of corporation tax. That is just one example.

Laszlo Kovacs, a former Member of the Hungarian Parliament, a former leader of the Socialist Party there, and a Foreign Affairs Minister, would not only sit and deliver a speech to the rest of us, but we could ask him questions in the same way we can ask questions of our Ministers. The media, who are ever present in one form or another, would be able to report on these issues because there would be no other domestic dispute or issue arising.

Leader's Questions would obviously be retained for contemporaneous issues of domestic concern but all else would have a European focus. That would be the case in this Chamber. What would happen in the Seanad? I will propose an illustration which would hold true for all Senates across the European Union where bi-cameral systems operate, and where it would be for each parliament to adopt its integration. I will give the Irish illustration of how it would work.

In the Seanad on a Thursday, so as not to compete with media coverage on the Wednesday, an illustrative and useful example of what would be newsworthy would be the chairperson of the agricultural committee of the European Parliament in the Seanad, with all Republic of Ireland MEPs in session and with the rights of question and access, debating why the European Commission has to introduce the sugar regime because of the fines threatened under the WTO rules. The consequences of that will, according to all the analysts, see the virtual elimination of the Irish sugar industry as we know it over the next five or six years, with appropriate compensation. It is necessary for the European Commission and the EU to comply with the WTO in terms of reducing our unjust subsidy of sugar prices in world terms in return for our access to other markets elsewhere.

They are only two illustrative examples and Members can think of many more which affect them. If we had those issues discussed here in this national parliament, and in every other national parliament, the political connection between what is happening to our citizens and voters in our constituencies at one level would be directly related to the decisions made by councils of ministers and members of parliaments in response to European Commission proposals. That connection is not currently apparent and its absence was a contributing factor to the reason many citizens, in addition to those who previously voted before, voted for the first time in the Netherlands and in France in the way they did, regarding the EU. If such a connection existed, people would see the re-connection between the European ideal and projects at one level and what the EU is doing at national level on people's behalf, either for or against their interests.

I invite the Minister for Foreign Affairs to consider that unless, during the period of reflection, we see some positive, active, innovative initiatives coming from small member states we will not get anything from the bigger member states. We have one prime minister, Mr. Blair, on his way out; President Chirac does not know if he will be a candidate again in 2007; we have a new Chancellor of Germany who has yet to find her feet; and Italy faces an election next April. Accordingly we cannot expect any political initiative or leadership from the four traditional major European countries. The drive in this instance, which should reflect the culture of the 25 EU countries, should come from the smaller countries.

There is no better country poised to lead that initiative than Ireland. The way in which Deputy Roche, while Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, co-ordinated activity in terms of the run-up to the ratification of the constitution treaty, is a tried and tested way of doing business. Ireland has seniority among the new ten entrant countries and among other countries and we should use that seniority to use the period of reflection not as some passive period of inaction but as an active period of intervention coming from the small member states. This is a unique opportunity.

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