Mr. Cox, MEP:

I apologise to those Senators who, because of that constraint, have not had time to make comments or ask questions. Senator Ormonde spoke about groups and elasticity and she wanted to know if we could end up being all over the place as a result of becoming too flexible. The short answer, because I do not have time to develop long answers, is that we have flexibility because we have diversity and provided it is rooted within a system that can contain it – we do not want flexibility which ruins the fabric of the institutions of the Union – then we need flexibility. An example is Schengen and border passage. We and the UK are out. We are out pragmatically, not on principle but because we have many transit journeys to and through the UK and we do not need passports. Switzerland and Norway are not in the EU, but they are included, which seems to be sensible flexibility. Some 13 states are in the Economic and Monetary Union, but some are not included. That, once again, shows degrees of flexibility. Those are two solid examples. As we go forward, we need room and diversity for flexibility, provided the flexibility respects the basic fabric of the rules we put together. We do not need people building alternative power centres which undermine the fabric of the European process.