John Bruton (Meath, Fine Gael)

That is the choice.

Senator Maurice Hayes asked how the 114 amendments to the 16 articles would be dealt with. We will decide in the Presidium which amendments are best and put an amended version to the Convention. We could not go through each one of them individually. The idea of a double majority, to which the Senator referred, instead of the complicated qualified majority voting system provided for in the Treaty of Nice, is an improvement that will take place.

Concern was expressed by Senators about the cost of campaigns and the recognition of candidates in a European presidential election. First, the European parties will be funded and will, in turn, fund campaigns. They will not be funded out of individuals' pockets. Second, people living on the Aran Islands or the Peleponese know who Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac are, even though neither politician might address them in their native languages. There is, therefore, no reason people living in those areas and other parts would not know who the candidates in a European presidential election were. They would get to know them and it would be the business of the candidates to make sure they did.

To answer Senator Coghlan's point, any country joining the European Union has to put 80,000 pages of European Union law onto its statute book, and all have done so. The trouble lies with enforcement. There are genuine worries, for example, about the courts system in Romania. Whatever about the Romanians accepting European Union law, will their courts be willing or able to implement it? That is the big question.