Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will answer the questions in order. With regard to the Nordic-Baltic group, the Dutch Prime Minister and I, as well as Foreign Ministers and Finance Ministers, attended by invitation but we are not members of the Nordic-Baltic group. I did not attend on the last occasion as I attended the European People's Party, EPP, summit. A number of pre-meetings happen before European Council meetings, sometimes at regional level and sometimes at party level. I decided to attend the EPP summit prior to the European Council meeting. In attendance were President Tusk, President Juncker, Michel Barnier, Angela Merkel and Antonio Tajani. I thought it was important to touch base with them before the European Council meeting which was held subsequent to that. No decision has been made on the next meeting of the Nordic-Baltic group but it is fair to say that Ireland, the three Nordic countries and the three Baltic countries, along with the Netherlands, have very similar interests in a number of areas, particularly with regard to tax sovereignty, free trade and enterprise competitiveness. We also have a similar approach to the future of Europe which we think should largely be led through the institutions and the leaders' agenda, and Donald Tusk's process rather than any particular proposals from particular governments. We will continue to work closely on those issues.

We may find that we have different allies on other issues, particularly with regard to agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, budget and related trade issues. We have a strong traditional ally in France. With regard to the EU budget and the multiannual financial framework, we potentially have strong alliances with central and eastern Europe. Today, Cabinet decided that we would issue a letter of intent to express our interest in joining with the Benelux countries and Austria to form an alliance relating to medicines, to ensure that we share information and work together so that patients in our respective countries can get access to new medicines more quickly, but equally-----

See this speech in context