Kathleen Lynch
Question:169 Ms Lynch asked the Minister for Finance his priorities for the EU Council of Finance Ministers for the period of Ireland's presidency of the EU; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20756/03]
Written Answers. - EU Presidency.
The overall national programme for the Irish Presidency is being drawn up by the Government and will be published in December, shortly before the commencement of the Irish Presidency on 1 January 2004.
The Presidency programme for the ECOFIN Council will form an important part of this overall national programme for the period January to June 2004. I shall be chairing the six meetings of the ECOFIN Council – one each month – that will arise in the Presidency.
My Department and I have been working on the ECOFIN programme for some time and will continue to do so up to the time of publication in December.
It will be appreciated that the ECOFIN programme, besides having a distinctive Irish input, must also take into account the concerns of my fellow Ministers from the other EU and accession states, the Commission and the Parliament. I am having, and will continue to have, discussions with these important interests to ensure that the programme fully reflects both an Irish and a wider EU perspective on the priorities that we should address.
It is already evident that among the important issues in the ECOFIN programme will be continuing to ensure macro-economic stability and structural reform to underpin the anticipated recovery in the world economy. This will include examination of the member states' programmes within the Stability and Growth Pact; ECOFIN'S input to the Lisbon process and to the spring European Council, including the preparation of the ECOFIN Presidency's key issues paper. The Lisbon Process aims, among other things, to have the EU become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world by 2010; continued preparation of the acceding countries for membership. This will involve the integration of the acceding countries into the EU's economic policy co-ordination multilateral surveillance and Lisbon processes; developments in the Intergovernmental Conference that may continue into our Presidency and where issues relating to taxation, the euro, and economic governance may arise, and future financing of the EU in the period after the present Agenda 2000 agreement ends, i.e. from 2007 onwards, including future regional policy in the EU.
This list is not by any means exhaustive – for example, there will be ongoing work on taxation legislation and on financial services legislation.
Overall, I am confident that the ECOFIN Council in the period of the Irish Presidency will make very substantial progress in pushing forward with the ambitious programme of work that I have outlined.