Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 7, inclusive, together.

I attended the spring meeting of the European Council in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, 25 and 26 March. As I will be making a statement to the House later today, I will confine myself to giving a summary account of the proceedings now.

The meeting discussed a new European strategy for growth and jobs, often referred to as EU 2020, which is intended to improve Europe's competitiveness in light of increasing global competition. The draft strategy is consistent with Ireland's efforts to move towards a smart economy with innovation and sustainability at its core. The council agreed the five headline targets for the strategy which centre on labour force participation, educational attainment, research and development, climate change and sustainability, and poverty reduction. I will elaborate on these in my statement later.

There are different views on how best to measure poverty fairly. As a result, we agreed that we would have to come back to this target, as well as that on education, at our June meeting. The elaboration of the strategy, including the setting of national targets and implementation arrangements, will be the subject of intensive work at several sectoral councils in the coming period. It is intended that the European Council will sign off on the strategy at its meeting in June.

The European Council discussed competitiveness and there is a considerable focus throughout Europe both on competitiveness vis-À-vis the external world, as well as relative competitiveness giving rise to imbalances among member states. The issue of competitiveness is at the heart of the EU 2020 strategy. The Heads of State and Government also discussed the situation surrounding global climate change negotiations following the disappointing outcome at the summit in Copenhagen last December, and agreed on a number of steps intended to support those negotiations.

Further to the statement agreed at the informal European Council meeting of 11 February, the Heads of State and Government of the eurozone countries concluded that, should it prove necessary, all eurozone member states would contribute assistance to Greece by means of bilateral loans, and that this would occur alongside significant support from the International Monetary Fund. The availability of this mechanism, which is heavily conditional, is intended to ease the pressure on Greece as it seeks further funding in the market place. I have arranged for a copy of the agreed statement by the Heads of State and Government of the eurozone countries, which sets down the arrangements, to be laid in the library of the House along with the conclusions of the spring European Council.

See this speech in context