Ray Butler (Meath West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 177: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the current state of planning for Ireland's Presidency of the Council of the European Union; the level of engagement that has taken place with Cyprus to date; the outcomes of those meetings; the level of engagement with our trio partners in Lithuania and Greece; the outcome of meetings with our trio partners; the currently envisaged priories for the trio programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32164/12]

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Presidency preparations are now at an advanced stage and have been operating at an intense level for more than a year. The principal focus across a very wide range of policy areas and Council formations will be on stimulating sustainable economic growth and job creation across Europe.

On 1 June a draft calendar of meetings to be held in Brussels during the Presidency was circulated to partners. In parallel planning is proceeding in consultation with Government Departments on the meetings that will be held in Ireland during the period. Regular contact with Cyprus and our Trio partners, Lithuania and Greece, has been maintained at ministerial and senior official. The Taoiseach and I have both informally discussed Presidency planning with our Cypriot colleagues. Most recently, Minister of State Creighton met her Cypriot counterpart, Deputy Minister Mavroyannis, in Horsens in Denmark on 13 June and the new Lithuanian Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs in Brussels at the end of May. Since coming into office, I have travelled to Athens and Vilnius while the Minister of State has travelled to Vilnius and Nicosia where we have had the opportunity to discuss Presidency preparations. We are looking forward to engaging with our counterparts in the Greek administrations. The meetings are important for ensuring clarity on the issues we want to prioritise and continuity of business between Presidencies.

At official level, discussions have been held in Brussels and in capitals between the Trio partners to discuss our 18-month joint programme. A further meeting at the level of Permanent Representatives will be held in Brussels in July before each partner submits to the Council Secretariat the issues they propose to prioritise during their Presidency. The Council Secretariat has responsibility for drafting the Trio programme which will be circulated to Member States in the autumn for their consideration.

The Trio programme will be framed within the context of the overall EU agenda and will also reflect the progress made by the Cypriot Presidency. However, there are a number of clear overarching priorities that will form the backdrop to our contribution to the Trio programme as well as to the development of our national Presidency programme.

We will seek to prioritise those proposals which are clearly related to the jobs and growth agenda across all policy areas. The Irish Presidency will also work to finalise agreement on those aspects of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) process that remain outstanding at the start of 2013. The MFF will set out the EU budget for the period 2014-2020 and has linkages to many policy issues of direct national importance to Ireland including the Common Agricultural Policy, the Common Fisheries Policy and Horizon 2020 (the EU's future framework programme for research and innovation). The Presidency will make every effort to contribute to the restoration of macroeconomic stability across the EU through the implementation of the Union's new economic governance procedures. In this context, Ireland will have the responsibility for managing in Council the European Semester, the process through which Member States coordinate their economic and budgetary policies. Work will continue at all levels of Government over the coming months to refine and develop the programme, in close cooperation with partner states, the European institutions and civil society.

Ireland has held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union on six previous occasions and we earned the reputation for being impartial and efficient managers of the EU agenda. It is a reputation we will seek to uphold next year.