Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will take less than two minutes and will be quicker than everyone else. I commend the Government on strengthening our relationship with France.

Various proposals have been made on eurozone bonds, banking unions, EU wide infrastructure spending and common programmes but all have been greeted with deep suspicion in Berlin. The Germans suspect that the bottom line on these ideas is a desire to get German taxpayers to subsidise other Europeans. However, Germany's counter proposal that the budgets of EU nations should be subject to control by the European Commission is dismissed as an infringement on national sovereignty. In the post-war years we have seen a more European Germany develop but a more German Europe now appears to be emerging. The price of Germany's financial assistance will increasingly be our acceptance of rules and laws designed in Berlin. Does the Tánaiste believe we are looking at further loss of sovereignty over the coming years?

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