JOINT COMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS (Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union) debate -
Thursday, 20 Nov 2008

Discussion with European Parliament.

Chairman

The committee is in public session. I welcome Mr. Francis Jacobs to the discussion. He has been a continuous observer of the workof the committee over the past seven weeks and therefore I will not go into its proceedings with him. He knows that all contributions made in the committee room go on the record and are being used by my colleagues and me as we frame our report.

Before I hand over to Mr. Jacobs I must bring up one matter with my colleagues. The committee has received a request from the European Movement inquiring whether Dr. Garret FitzGerald will address the committee next Tuesday. With the consent of colleagues, I intend to reply explaining that this cannot be facilitated. Next week we must draft our report and I am concerned that public engagements of any kind next week might delay us in publication of the report. I propose to thank the organisation for its offer and explain that, because the committee is in its last week of preparing its report, regrettably, it cannot accept the offer.

Deputy Joe Costello

Is there a request from two lecturers in UCC?

Chairman

Yes. We will note it and deal with that as a matter of correspondence. The secretariat is waiting for our consensus before reverting to the doctor to thank him for his offer of help. However, on this occasion we cannot take up the offer for next week because of the amount of work we must carry out in completing our report.

Deputy Joe Costello

Very well, but if he wants to submit remarks, they would be appreciated, is that correct?

Chairman

Yes, absolutely. We will request a submission in any other way, but unfortunately we have no time to allocate next week, which is a pity as his contribution would have been very helpful. However, we must focus on the next part of the work programme next week. I apologise for diverting from Mr. Jacobs. He is very welcome and I recognise he is familiar with the procedure but I remind him of the notice on privilege. I draw attention to the fact that members of the committee have absolute privilege, but this privilege does not apply to witnesses appearing before the committee. I will alert Mr. Jacobs when there is one minute remaining for his testimony.

Mr. Francis Jacobs

I thank the Chairman and I thank the sub-committee for the opportunity to address it. I am more used to being on the other side, organising hearings of parliamentary committees rather than giving evidence. I congratulate the sub-committee on its stamina and on the debates in recent weeks. It has created a great resource for the future in terms of the material submitted and the quality of many of the debates.

I will outline the work of the European Parliament office in Ireland. I will then address some of the key challenges in communicating on European issues, and I will then conclude with some practical suggestions on how the European Parliament and the Oireachtas could work together on these matters in the future.

I refer to the work of our office. We are a small office with a staff of six people, but we are part of a much wider network, involving not only the 13 Irish MEPs, but members of the European Parliament from other countries, and staff of the European Parliament both in Brussels and the other information offices in all the EU member states.

The work of our office involves two-way communications. We communicate on European Union issues in Ireland and we revert to our colleagues in Brussels on Irish developments and concerns. Regarding communication on EU issues in Ireland, we work not only with the 13 Irish MEPs, but with visiting MEPs from other countries, the Irish Government, the media, the social partners, civic society and schools and universities which constitute a very important part of our work. We also communicate directly with individual Irish citizens.

We have a particular task in communicating about the distinctive role and powers of the European Parliament. In practice, very little distinction is made by most people between the European Union institutions. Our role and that of the Commission are often mixed up. People often phone our office asking for the EU office. Another example is the press clipping from yesterday in which a British paper discussed a vote which took place in the European Parliament describing decisions taken by eurocrats. Our job of communicating in Ireland must focus in a wider sense on the role, powers and institutions of the European Union as a whole. At the same time it must point out that the European Union is not just about Brussels bureaucrats imposing single points of view on member states, but it has a directly elected parliament with growing powers in which every point of view is represented, whether left, right or centre; economic, social or environmental; federalist or eurosceptic.

The other side of the work of our office is communicating on Irish developments and concerns to MEPs in Brussels and other EU countries. The office briefs our colleagues on what is happening Ireland, a role which was especially important in the run-up and aftermath of the Lisbon treaty referendum. It needs to be further developed in the future, by backing up the work of our MEPs and by feeding Irish concerns into the everyday work of the parliament and its committees.

I refer to the key challenges on communicating on European issues. I am conscious from today's meeting and other meetings that many of the points have been already made, so I will be telegraphic. The first, obvious point is that we need to communicate much better the purpose of the European Union. It is not there because of its institutional structure, but because it is trying to do a job, whether on climate change, foreign policy, tacking the economic crisis, tacking cross-border crime and so on.

Related to this is the need to convey the idea that the European Union is not just a bureaucratic project. One of the arguments made during the Lisbon referendum was that the proposed treaty would make the European Union more efficient. However, that was an uninspiring message for people. It is important to communicate that it is neither about bureaucracy nor about the point Deputy Dooley made, namely, who gets the money. It is also about ideals and values, but it needs to have a sense of direction.

I was struck in the debate on the Lisbon referendum campaign by the accusations that the European Union was developing into a superstate and a federal Europe. However, in my experience there are fewer federalists and fewer obvious European Union idealists now than there were when I started working in the European Parliament at the time of the first direct elections.

Another very important challenge is to clarify which issues are matters of direct EU competence, which are areas where the EU has something to offer but is not directly competent, and matters where competence is essentially national. It is even more difficult to communicate this when an original decision has been taken at European Union level, but is then implemented in a specific way at national level. However, in such cases Europe can get the blame for what is essentially national implementation of that original decision.

It is very important to convey the complexity of the EU in clear and simple terms, which is a point that has surfaced repeatedly in the sub-committee debates. It is important to do so as regards the structure of the European Union and for EU treaties and other texts. This is perhaps a lesson more for the future, but there must be more emphasis on how European Union treaties read. It is important to avoid jargon and to write down the points negotiated between 27 member states, which are inevitably complex. The texts must not only have a legal check but must be written in clearer language. I raise several points in that context, including the amendment process of the treaty and the famous self-amending Article 48 of the Lisbon treaty. The article was not self amending, but was in many ways a more democratic way of amending the European Union. However, this was not very clear if one read the original text.

Another example is the matter of trade. There was an extensive debate on whether there was a veto on an overall trade agreement such as the Doha round of the WTO negotiations. It is the case that if there is a very small element requiring unanimity then the whole agreement requires unanimity. It is a pity the treaty does not say as much.

Communicating on Europe is not just about the general, but also the specific. A vital task for our office and for everyone dealing with EU communications is to identify the key issues discussed within the European Union and then to put them into context. Why are such issues on the agenda? What are the differences of view on the issue? Why has a particular compromise solution been chosen? The purpose of this communication is not to say what is good or bad, but to indicate what is at stake. This is the best way of rebutting misleading information or myths.

A related matter is the need to put European decision making into its local context. What do these issues mean for Ireland nationally and locally? An issue which has surfaced several times in the debates of the sub-committee and one with which I am very familiar as I used to work on the environment committee, is the water framework directive. This came to the fore at the end of last year, because of the issue of the EU imposing water rates on schools. Two points need to be matter on this matter. This was an example where Ireland very successfully negotiated a derogation. The discussion held up the negotiators for several hours on the final night of negotiations to ensure domestic consumers in Ireland would not have water rates imposed. This was portrayed as a great success for Ireland, yet the schools issue did not arise. More fundamentally, what on earth was the water framework directive meant to achieve? It is very sensitive legislation but the overall objective is to try to have better water quality in Ireland and to try to avoid the kinds of problems we have seen in Galway with cryptosporidium and so on. The fundamental objective of a water framework directive is to have better quality water throughout Ireland and the member states. That has not come across, and it is very important to continue to communicate on that issue because there are many sensitive issues which still have to be discussed, including a broad consultation process, before that directive properly comes into place.

Another important challenge in communication on the European Union is not only to explain things in an Irish context, but also to try to explain the concerns of other countries within the European Union. Many of the witnesses have said the European Union is about give and take and building partnership between different countries. It is very important to understand the concerns of other countries. One issue in that context is solidarity with countries which may feel under military threat. It is important to understand that those in Lithuania, Latvia or Estonia are much more concerned about that issue than those in Ireland.

It is also important to convey that the European Union is not boring and remote but is about important issues and colourful personalities. I planned to discuss how we could be more professional in the future but that might come out in questioning. I would like to conclude on some practical suggestions on how we could work together in the future.

The important point is that the European Parliament and national parliaments have complementary roles. The European Parliament has increasingly become a specialist on EU legislation and the EU budget, but national parliaments are closer to citizens and are expert on the impact within their own country and how EU legislation is implemented. The two roles are complementary. One way in which this could be built on in the future is that instead of having abstract discussions on subsidiarity, national parliaments could be built in to the increasingly structured debate on the annual legislative programme and what the European Union should be debating over the coming year. The parliament has a particular timeframe in which it gives its point of view to the Commission on what should be on the agenda and there is great scope for national parliaments to be better built into that.

Regarding the pre-legislative and legislative work of the European Union, it is very important that more information is fed back to national parliaments on where we are in the process and what stage is being reached so they can be more effective in introducing their point of view at the right moment in the debate and to greater effect. Once the legislation is adopted, it is only the beginning of the process. It is very important not only that it is correctly implemented but also that it works and meets the purpose for which it was intended. There is huge scope for national parliaments and the European Parliament to work much more closely together on this.

There is a need for resources. It is vital that anyone communicating on the European Union, whether they are a national parliament, us or individual organisations working on European issues has adequate resources. The committee met a delegation from the Danish Parliament and I am always struck by how well resourced Nordic parliaments are on European Union issues, whether it is European committees or the Danish Information Centre on the European Union. It is vital to have the necessary resources, not just money but also staff, to do the job.

It is important we exchange the material we have. The European Parliament in its visitor centre is developing all kinds of interactive material on the European Union. They get visiting school groups to simulate how the EU works. We would love to share that material with members as it is being developed because as the Oireachtas develops an information centre on Europe, there is great scope for exchanging that kind of information. We also have a European Parliament web television channel which opened a couple of months ago. There is great scope for linking up on that.

I thank the committee, wish it the best in drafting its report and offer our office resources to help it in its future work on the European Union.

Deputy Timmy Dooley

I welcome Mr. Jacobs. He has been with us on many occasions throughout our deliberations and his presence is welcome. I thank him for his informative presentation. I have some observations and questions. There has been much talk in the committee from various witnesses on the democratic deficit. People tend to ignore the European Parliament somewhat when they say that and that is the forum where there are direct elections and representation. The Lisbon treaty, if it had been passed, would have given more power to the European Parliament through the co-decision process. Along with the Parliament is the Council which, although its members are not directly elected to it, they are all parliamentarians elected in the different countries.

While much is made of the principle of democracy and how that would be enhanced by direct elections, many processes throughout Europe use a list system to elect members to their parliaments. Some people have a different understanding of the electoral process and they are valid within the broad principles of democracy. Perhaps Mr. Jacobs could discuss the notion that Europe-wide suffrage would legitimise or enhance the structure, based on the systems in other countries.

Another element Mr. Jacobs could help us with is how the national parliament might be better utilised to reflect the business of the European Parliament. We comment negatively on our own media for not carrying information from this House and still fail to get our message across. Can we learn from what the European Parliament or national parliaments do in other countries to convey the substantive message? Does Mr. Jacobs think a forum should be established in this House that might better vent issues that arise in the European Parliament? Irish Members of the European Parliament have the right to attend Oireachtas committees in an ex officio role. They do not have voting rights but they have right of access. Is there a model that might see a parallel between European committees and the committees of our Parliament to improve the knowledge pool for the wider community?

Mr. Francis Jacobs

There were a lot of important questions from Deputy Dooley. On the question of a democratic deficit, the way of meeting it is by a combination of strengthening the European and national parliaments and directly involving citizens as much as is practically possible. I did not mention the work of the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament, which brings the general issues that arise in committees to a very local level. There are an increasing number of petitions from all over the European Union, as well as a huge number from Ireland. That is one way of bringing individual citizens directly in touch with what we are doing.

In terms of the type of electoral system within the European Parliament, there has been a long debate on whether there should be some form of uniform electoral system. That idea was abandoned because it was felt that it was important that within each country the electoral system chosen should reflect national cultures and traditions as long as it was broadly proportional. We cannot even generalise about list systems because there is a huge difference between whether a list system has a regional basis, is a national list or an open list in which voters can promote individual candidates up and down that list or whether it is a closed list where voters just have to accept the order in which the party has drawn up a list. There are very different types of system. I cannot count the number of systems in place in the European Parliament but any attempt to try to standardise them has been abandoned because it was felt that to go against national political cultures was wrong.

An interesting idea was put forward by a rapporteur in the uniform electoral system that in addition to each country having a number of seats in the European Parliament, a certain percentage of the seats should be in a Europe-wide constituency, the idea being that that would capture people's imagination by having a few candidates who would stand Europe wide. For example, out of the 736 seats, there might be 75 or so which would be on a Europe-wide list, but it was felt that would take away seats from individual countries, that some of the smaller countries would lose too much and that the European Union was not ready for that.

That brings me to my final point on that issue. Many of the proposals to try to meet the democratic deficit, whether it is Europe-wide referenda or the idea of a Europe-wide constituency, would reinforce the federal nature of a European Union which most people believe the European Union is not ready for yet, even if it is a noble idea for the future.

In terms of the practicalities of national parliament-European Parliament links, the other issue raised by Deputy Dooley, one practical problem is the question of timing and the fact that, inevitably, if one has constituencies to look after, one must have Oireachtas meetings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and that is when the European Parliament meetings in Brussels or Strasbourg are held. Joint meetings, therefore, are made complex by the fact that the Mondays and Fridays, when the MEPs tend to be freer, are also the days when Members are in their constituencies. That is a practical problem. How do we get around that?

In different countries various efforts are being made to try to meet that. One of the ways of doing that is within individual parties and, therefore, in some countries Members of the European Parliament are integrated into the executive of their parties to allow the point of view of the MEPs be brought in to that national party's decision-making structures. That has been the case in the Netherlands, for instance, for a long time. The leader of a particular party's MEPs in Brussels and Strasbourg is often on the party executive and, therefore, when the party meets once a week and the executive meets once a week, the MEPs' concerns and the issues being raised in the European Parliament can be brought back into the national debate. That is important because the national party might indicate it would like to do something, the MEP will respond that issue is being debated currently and they will factor those concerns into that debate. It should be aware of that at the same time, however. That is a practical way of doing that.

The other aspect is that we are much more aware of what we are doing. The point I made in my opening remarks was not just about generalities in terms of what we are doing but working together with the committee and Oireachtas staff so that they are very much aware of where we are in considering particular issues. That is very important and it has been made more important by the fact that there are only 13 Irish MEPs and there will only be 12 after the next election. That means that the Irish MEPs cannot be present in all the European Parliament committees. Currently, there are 20 and there might be one or two more after the next election. It is difficult for Irish MEPs to follow, even through their staffs, all the issues and it is important that there are other mechanisms to back up their feedback into their own parties by having other ways of being aware of what is going on.

I am in close contact with John Hamilton, the Oireachtas representative in Brussels, and with colleagues in various committees and I ask them to make me aware of what is going on in their committees. I am happy to share that resource to ensure the committee is aware of what is happening on social affairs or in our incredibly sensitive and difficult decision making on climate change and on emissions trading where we are about to reach fairly sensitive and very controversial decisions. If we can build that in, in a concrete way, that would be a practical way of working on that calibration.

Senator Déirdre de Búrca

I thank Mr. Francis Jacobs for his presentation and apologise for my late arrival. I heard the recommendations made at the end and I might comment on some of those.

The complementary role of national and European parliaments is important and something that has not been facilitated or encouraged as much as it should. It seems to me that national parliaments and their representatives should be visiting Brussels regularly. The representatives from the House of Lords and their European affairs committee make a point of visiting Brussels, certainly on an annual basis, but even more regularly than that. Until one is in situ and has exposure to all one’s MEPs and also what is going on in the committees, it is not possible to have a good sense of what is happening in terms of decision making in Brussels. Equally, we need to encourage MEPs to address the sectoral committees to a greater extent. It would be good also to have our MEPs address the Upper House more regularly and other senior officials from the European institutions address the national parliaments more regularly. The linkages between national and European institutions and, in particular, the parliaments should be much stronger. I agree with Mr. Jacobs on that issue.

A point was made, again by the representative of the House of Lords committee, that it is a good idea for any aspiring Ministers or those who are appointed as Ministers to have had experience on the European affairs committee because a Minister's role on the Council of Ministers will have a very strong European dimension. We do not always ensure that happens here. It may happen in an ad hoc way but it is something about which we should be more explicit. If an individual is keen to aspire to ministerial office eventually, having strong European credentials would make that person more eligible for such a role.

It has been suggested — I wonder what Mr. Jacobs thinks of it — that an EU office should be situated in the Houses of the Oireachtas for the purpose of providing information to parliamentarians about matters relating to European institutions and, in particular, the European Parliament. Mr. Jacobs mentioned an EU-wide list for some of the elected positions to the European Parliament. The Green Party has always supported that kind of idea. How could the public be encouraged to take a greater interest in political groupings in the European Parliament? Most of the Irish public would not be aware of the different political groupings and the difference in ideology between them. There is a tendency to focus on our own elected MEPs. How can we encourage the public to take a greater interest in and become more familiar with the various political groupings in the European Parliament?

In regard to the proposals for the citizens' initiative included in the Lisbon treaty, how does Mr. Jacobs see that working in practice? If the Lisbon treaty were to be ratified and the citizens' initiative became a reality, would he envisage Irish citizens liaising directly with the European institutions in terms of new legislation they wanted introduced and without any involvement of their national Parliament? Does he believe national parliaments would not have any involvement in the citizens' initiative process or would it be an advantage to include national parliaments in terms of the process that might apply to any future use of a citizens' initiative?

Mr. Francis Jacobs

Many questions were put and I will take one or two of them in reverse order. On the citizens' initiative, I saw the value of a citizens' initiative as having more weight than a conventional petition. It had a fresh hold. If one reads the text, one will see that the "No" campaign said it can be ignored but if it got a large number of signatures it is something the European Union institutions would have to take with more force, so to speak, than a conventional petition. It is a step beyond the petition process. If that is the case and the European Parliament and the other institutions have to examine that citizens' initiative, I do not see any reason national parliaments cannot get involved in the process as they do in EU legislation. If an issue is raised, it can be debated within the national parliament and in a sense it then becomes a proposal for legislation which is being put forward by citizens rather than by the Commission. I do not see a contradiction between national parliament involvement and the fact that the European Parliament would have to examine it carefully; the Commission would have to be involved in it as well.

On the work of the political groups, there is scope to have more publicity as to how they work and what they stand for. A particular problem is the fact that some political groups are linked to European political families while others have developed in a broader way and consist of a wide variety of parties from different political families. Not all the groups, therefore, are as clear as some of the others. That is one problem.

The other problem in making people aware of the differences between the groups is what has been a great strength of the European Union, namely, the need to build consensus not only at EU level as a whole, but within the European Parliament. Broad majorities are needed to change legislation, modify Commission proposals or adopt or reject legislation within the Parliament. That has meant that sometimes the ideologically diverse groups have had to reach a compromise position and it is difficult to explain to people that they have co-operated on the same issue.

A number of academics studying the European Union say that the European Parliament will become a much more interesting body for voters when there are starker left-right differences or pro-European-anti-European differences and when it becomes less of a consensus parliament and more one where there are broad divisions. Obviously, it will never be like a national parliament because there is not a government and an opposition within the European Parliament and therefore it is already a different kind of parliament but having more visible divisions on certain issues might make the battles over ideas more prominent and make it more interesting to citizens.

The idea of a European Union office in the Oireachtas is a good one. The Danish precedent has been a good one. Interestingly, I was talking this week to the official who works in Brussels for the Danish Parliament and he told me that the biggest source of information on the European Union in Denmark is not the Government but the Danish Parliament information office. I am not sure about the size of its staff but it has five university trained specialists on the staff, in addition to the clerical staff. It is well resourced and they handle approximately 15,000 individual citizen's inquires a year, which is a good deal. That is an interesting model.

I visited the Folketing on one occasion and saw the Danish Parliament's information centre not only on Europe, but on the Danish parliamentary system, which tries to involve citizens in an interactive way. School groups come in and play the role of political groups. One person in the school represents a politician from the Socialist Party, another from the Green Party and another from the Conservatives. They are then filmed and subsequently see themselves debating in the Parliament. They present some proposal in committee and steer through legislation. They are in the Parliament for about an hour and a half. It is a fascinating process. Not everyone responds to that but I found it to be an impressive way of making people who came there with very little knowledge aware of how the Danish system or the European system worked and the way it held their attention. It is a very good idea if it is done well.

Deputy Joe Costello

I thank Mr. Jacobs for making a succinct contribution to the committee and for his general interest in the affairs of this House. He was always around when discussions were taking place and offered advice on occasion.

I was particularly struck by his closing remarks on what I would call pushing out the boundaries in terms of the enhanced role of national parliaments, namely, that we would expand the scrutiny element to the annual legislative programme and get in at the beginning of that process. He also asked why should the national parliament, as well as the Commission, not put forward legislative proposals. That is an important issue in the context of the democratic deficit and the perception that the Commission is somewhat distant from the citizen.

In terms of what would be required, it includes resources, Government willingness to allow this type of mechanism and to provide it with the necessary fora for it to take place, and MEP involvement in terms of complementarity and the way business would be done in the sense that this is the national Parliament and the European Parliament is another body. It might require a new dispensation because there is no MEP involvement in the national Parliament set up. For that matter, there is no Government involvement in terms of having a forum in which the committees can articulate in plenary session. That must be done as well but there are not adequate resources to underpin all of that. Mr. Jacobs might comment on that aspect.

Another aspect that struck me was the fact that the European Parliament is still being confused with the European Union, the European Commission and so on and that Irish people appear to be at the lower end of the scale in terms of awareness of European institutions and everything to do with the European Union. That seems to be somewhat contradictory considering the effort we have put in to providing information and increasing awareness on the national forum and so on. Is it the case that we have all failed hopelessly in that regard or is it that as a small country Europe is more distant to us than it is to a mainland country? The United Kingdom sees itself at a great distance from Europe in many ways and I would imagine it experiences similar difficulty. Is it because we are an island or is it that we are not doing the business properly?

In terms of future treaty referenda, Mr. Jacobs spoke about the importance of the presentation of the treaty, the way it is written and how it deals with the key issues. What scenario does he envisage that would best allow us conduct our business in that fashion? Who should lead the charge? Who should take the treaty forward and what format should the treaty take when the question is put in a referendum? Currently, the Government is in charge, each party does its own thing if it so wishes and there is limited civic society involvement. What does Mr. Jacobs think is the best way forward in future so we can focus more on the issues involved?

Representatives from some of the newspapers appeared before the committee yesterday. The representatives of tabloid newspapers said they never hear a word, good, bad or indifferent, from any of the European Union institutions, that those institutions do not appear to recognise that these newspapers exist and that they appear to think The Irish Times is the ultimate means of communication, along with the broadcast media. Will Mr. Jacobs respond to that?

Mr. Francis Jacobs

I will respond to the last point first. We have an increasing involvement with the tabloids but their concern that in the past we have not worked with them sufficiently closely is valid. It is something we are conscious of and we are trying to redress it, to such an extent that we are holding a seminar in Brussels to which we have invited the editors of the tabloids so we can have a debate on some of the issues. Another very important point in communicating about Europe is that we do not wish to do it just in jargon but in terms that respond to their readership. Perhaps that is something we have not done well enough in the past.

Incidentally, there is an extremely important point that must be addressed by everybody working in the EU institutions, particularly the people who work on legislation, I do not know how they are presented by MEPs back home, but certainly the EU officials who work on the legislation, putting forward the proposals and working on them with MEPs in the European Parliament, are thinking of how to get a deal through the parliament but not about how the proposals will play in the 27 member states. I believe that building a communication function into legislative adoption will have to be done in future. This would consider how a measure will play in the different member states and anticipate problems.

Look at the agendas of some of the parliament's committees at present. The environment committee is dealing with the issue of pesticides, which will be hugely sensitive in farming communities. There must be consideration of how that will go down or whether the tabloids will make fun of it. I recall a lovely issue which became a classic tabloid story. It is an old story but it is one I was involved in because I was in the committee dealing with Internal Market legislation. It was the famous story of the lawnmower noise directive. All the tabloids in the UK lampooned it — this is what I meant about putting things in context.

The irony was that it was taken up by the Commission because there were only two major lawnmower manufacturers in the European Union, one in Germany and one in the UK. The Germans adopted a law fractionally more restrictive than the UK law to keep the British lawnmowers out of the German market. It was protectionist. The British lawnmower manufacturers complained to the Commission. The Commission examined the matter, agreed that it was not consumer protection as the difference was minimal and said it was a pure example of protectionism. The Commission put forward a proposal and the British tabloid media tore it to shreds. That is a very good example of the need to have a seamless process of communication along with adopting legislation.

With regard to contributing to the work of the EU institutions, the Barroso initiative was to ask the Oireachtas to put forward its comments on proposals, even if it is not formally required. I believe there is much scope to build on that. One point I did not mention in reply to Senator de Búrca's questions was on the same point, how to build national parliament contributions into the European process. Round table meetings between national parliamentarians and the European Parliament are becoming increasingly common. Committees from the Oireachtas travel to Brussels and vice versa. It is important that the same people be involved in these meetings successively. My experience of parliamentary round tables is that each time there appeared to be different participants from national parliaments and sometimes from the European Parliament. There must be greater continuity of contact for national parliaments and the European Parliament to work together more effectively.

In terms of leading the charge on our future, it must be done at many levels. Civic society has a hugely important role to play. It was obviously very effective in the second Nice referendum but less effective in the Lisbon referendum. It is important that there is substantial civic society involvement in such a campaign. There must also be more co-ordination on communications. When Mr. Martin Territt from the Commission office was before the committee yesterday, he mentioned the fact that at present we are considering a memorandum of understanding between the Irish Government, the Commission and the Parliament to have better co-ordinated communications efforts on what the EU means, what it is doing at present and the EU institutional structure. That could be a useful way of having better co-ordinated information.

When several parties are on the same side in a referendum, it is sometimes difficult to co-ordinate campaigns between parties because of their historical antagonism. Co-ordination between individual party campaigns was clearly missing in the Lisbon referendum. It is obviously a lesson for the future.

Have I omitted any questions?

Deputy Joe Costello

No. They have been dealt with.

Chairman

Thank you, Mr. Jacobs. I have an observation rather than a question. It strikes me that many of the questions we are asking about the effectiveness of the Houses of the Oireachtas and how their visibility can be improved also apply to the European Parliament. That is a genuine parliament in the sense that there is not an executive in it which has huge power, unlike the Houses of the Oireachtas. Many of the points we have considered in the committee about our relationship with the media and how that can be improved when they cover European affairs are actually more pertinent to the European Parliament. While I am glad that relationships with the tabloid newspapers will be a strategy of the European Parliament, I am disturbed by the inference that for some time they were not part of the communication network or communications were not being made available to them in a way that best suited their needs. Some of the recommendations the committee might make regarding visibility to the public and so forth will be points that could be taken on board by the European Parliament.

On behalf of my colleagues I thank you, Mr. Jacobs, for your participation this evening and for your continuous attendance at our meetings. We look forward to working with you when this work is completed.

The sub-committee went into private session at 5.09 p.m. and adjourned at 5.17 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Friday, 21 November 2008.