I was very glad to have the opportunity to visit this Parliament because I know that Ireland is going through very tough times and I wanted to come here to explain the Commission's work programme, how we see progress being made in the next few months and how we appreciate the bold steps the Government and the country is taking to get Ireland out of the crisis. If we look at what has been happening in Europe and around the world over the last few years, we see that we are going through an unprecedented crisis. Taking any statistics available, we can easily agree that this is the worst crisis since the Second World War. The only comparison we can find is the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is natural that citizens in Europe expect their leaders to overcome the problem and point to clear directions for the future.
In the Commission, we have emphasised the fact that we cannot continue with business as usual and that we need to focus on growth. Over the last two or three years, we have been making many efforts in the area of consolidation, but it is now clear that we need to focus on growth. Therefore, we started a process which we called "European Renewal", and which is based on stability and responsibility, but also on growth. Even though our day-to-day agenda has been dominated by immediate urgencies, it is clear that we must not lose of the need for the longer term reform. We need to restore the public finances. It is clear that we need to get them in order, but we cannot neglect our plans for the future. We must put out the fire, but at the same time we must lay the foundation for our new house.
We therefore decided to put growth at the heart of our work programme for 2012. We cannot use a magic wand to get the economy moving again, but we need to focus all of our efforts and our research to get our economies out of the crisis and to get them to grow again. We need to prepare our system in a way that would prevent the repetition of the crisis for many years.
Aside from the macrofinance problem and the banking sector crisis, one problem we had was that the euro was losing competitiveness steadily but surely for many years. A key to getting the European economy back among the top world economies is to examine what we can do better and how we can consolidate our efforts in a way so that research, innovation and science can receive higher prominence in the European Union.
My good friend and the members' fellow citizen, Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, is doing a great job and she never misses an opportunity to remind us at our college table that we have to simplify and make things easier for scientists and researchers so that they can spend more time in their labs and less on accounting. We all understand that and we have presented a major programme for simplification but we will need the help of the committee. It will need to be improved in the Council and in the European Parliament, but, most importantly, it will need to be implemented on a national level. Often, directives are approved but, even for the best of them, because of a lack of transposition or inappropriate or imprecise implementation we do not get the results we expected. I am sure if it deals with research and development there will be no problem in Ireland, because it is doing excellently in using EU funding in the area of research. For example, the Marie Curie programme alone has brought more than €60 million to Ireland since 2002. This is a remarkable achievement given the fact that this funding is based on fierce competition. Ireland's researchers and scientists have done excellently in that Europe-wide competition. In addition, Irish SMEs are among the most successful in obtaining EU research funding.
In total, Irish SMEs are receiving a financial contribution of €43.4 million from the EU, which represents over one fifth of the entire EU contribution to SMEs. We know that the EU is big and Ireland does not represent 20% of it but when it comes to research and the success of SMEs it represents one fifth of the EU, which is a remarkable fact. To give just one more example, €8 million of EU funding was made available to the Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork in April 2010. This money has created 20 new research jobs and will fund 20 cutting-edge projects which I believe will contribute further to the innovative nature of Irish science and its prominent position in the European research family.
When the Commission examines what it can use as a major booster to restart the European economy - it is clear we do not have any more money for fiscal stimulus - we see that we definitely need to use the Single Market in a much better way. There are 500 million potential customers and there are still too many barriers preventing our businesses and SMEs from reaching them more efficiently. Ireland can appreciate our efforts because it is one of the major beneficiaries of the Single Market and its economy is very much export-oriented, with its major partners in the European Union. Therefore, what we did was to present a so-called Single Market Act, although actually there are 12 proposals for directives which should make the Single Market much more open by helping us to get rid of the remaining barriers and bring the Single Market to the 21st century. We believe the measures we are proposing for creation of the digital Single Market, including new cross-border rules for licensing, could greatly help the many businesses that have their international headquarters in Ireland.
Another important item, which I am sure will be very much discussed in Ireland, is our aim to complete the ambitious overhaul of financial regulation and supervision. This is an effort that was led by the Commission in recent years. We believe this will provide a stable and transparent environment for healthy, growth-stimulating investment, ensuring that financial institutions actually serve the real economy rather than undermining its stability.
In the past the driver for growth in Ireland was broad-based exports. Even though reforms are very painful and difficult, this is one of the areas in which Ireland is showing its strong resilience and business base. Its export growth of 6% under difficult circumstances is a very impressive performance. We are trying to explore the possibilities of opening up opportunities for trade beyond the borders of the EU. This year, we will explore a possible free trade agreement with Japan as well as an investment agreement with China. Both the President of the European Commission, Mr. Barroso, and the President of the European Council, Mr. Van Rompuy, have had high-level meetings and summits in China, and this was one of the items on the agenda. Europe, which is the biggest economy in the world, must explore further possibilities of gaining fair access to other markets. It is important that in the future we make sure the development and economic renewal on which we are all working will be sustainable and that it will be a renewal for all.
I now come to a topic that is extremely painful for the whole EU but more so for some countries than for others, namely, unemployment, and especially youth unemployment. We have got into an unfortunate situation in which we even had to invent a new acronym, NEETs, to refer to young people who are not in employment, education or training. There are more than 7.5 million young people in this situation, and it is an enormous waste of potential because this, I truly believe, is the best educated young generation we have ever had in the EU, yet we cannot accommodate their urge to work and get them good jobs. Therefore, we decided that we need to mobilise the resources we have in the European Union in the fields of finance, exchange of experience and best practice. We approached the eight member states for which this problem is most painful and decided to set up joint action teams to look for national and European synergies to tackle this issue. As members know well, Ireland is among these member states, as is my country, and we are encouraged that the Government reacted to the letter of our President on such short notice and that it has already presented its jobs plan.
The team of the commission will arrive shortly - Ms Nolan is telling me it will be next week, on 21 February - and I hope we can bring additional expertise to consider some possibilities for using EU money. I know that Ireland has always done very well in using EU money, but we can always look for efficiency gains through best practice approaches and the use of expertise, as has been done with success in other countries. I hope that together with the Irish Government and the social partners we can find ways to get this young, talented generation back to work.
We also hope to make use of our youth programmes, such as those on which Ms Nolan was working before she came to work in Dublin. For example, in Youth on the Move, we are trying to create a new system. Young people would get a card and a standardised system would explain their previous experience, qualifications and education. The card should be widely accepted all over Europe. It will also help young people to look for jobs, not just in their home countries but all over the European Union.
On the European social fund, to date €6 billion has been spent to co-finance Irish Government spending on training, education and equality programmes which have been designed to equip Irish workers with the skills needed in a modern jobs market. As I explained, we also used the European globalisation adjustment fund which helped Irish companies, including SR Technics and the Dell facility in Limerick, to retrain hundreds of workers who were made redundant following restructuring. It is also clear proof of how we can match national and European efforts to deliver the necessary systems, particularly in difficult times for European citizens.
Another very important topic this year will be the discussion on the multi-annual financial perspective. It will involve another seven years of budgets which the European Union should work with from 2014-20. As the committee is aware, last summer we presented our proposal. The discussion is now taking place. We in the Commission see the conclusion of negotiations this year as a top priority in order that we can use next year for the preparation of the programmes for completion of all the simplification measures we are suggesting. We want to be able to start on 1 January 2014 with a new budget, new rules and, it is to be hoped, better results in spending the next multi-annual financial programme for the European Union.
The role of the committee in this discussion will be crucial because we have to agree to it. All institutions and member states will also participate in the discussion on the multi-annual financial framework which will take place on 22 March in Brussels. Discussions will take place between all institutions and parliaments, including the European Parliament. It would be very good if the committee could present its priorities. I also ask for its support for getting the task done by the end of the year because it would help all of us to better prepare for 2014.
Before the meeting we discussed the importance of the new package on economic governance. We went through a lot over the last two years and one of the lessons we learned was that we have to do everything at our disposal not to get into the same situation. We saw how much slippage there was in terms of imprecise regulations or a lack of regulation in the European rules which were not adopted to deal with the new, but probably unnoticed, growing interdependence among the economies in the European Union.
Enormous efforts were made to improve economic governance. One of the important pieces in the new economic governance puzzle was the treaty on the fiscal compact which was agreed at the informal European summit on 30 January by 25 member states including Ireland. The treaty is very important because it deals with additional leverage and instruments to strengthen fiscal discipline, how to introduce stricter surveillance and more automaticity in the excessive deficit procedure.
There was also agreement to further strengthen economic co-ordination in the euro area, for example by the ex ante discussion of plans for major economic policy reforms. The Commission position from the beginning was very clear. Our preference was to go through the normal amending procedure of the Lisbon treaty but because we could not get unanimous support for this procedure we had to go for the intergovernmental treaty approach. We needed a result and agreed with the overall philosophy.
What was very important for the Commission was that, despite the fact that this an intergovernmental treaty, we managed to secure what was very important for the Commission, namely European spirit, communitarian methods, the role of the institution, respect for the primacy of European law and clear agreement that the treaty will become part of European law and treaties within five years. Even though we had to proceed in this way because of political and time pressures, the treaty will become part of European law very soon.
The last informal summit was also very important for Ireland. For the first time in the past two or three years it was not just dealing with emergencies. It was clear that we now need to talk more about how to begin to grow our economies and how to create new jobs. It was a welcome change for the Commission. We have made very clear on many different occasions that we cannot build a Europe on only austerity and fiscal consolidation. We need to restore confidence, growth and hope in national and European leaders so that we can manage this crisis and get Europe out of this very difficult situation.
The past two years since the Lisbon treaty came into force have made it clear that Europe cannot operate without national parliaments. I am impressed by how national parliaments started to use the new prerogatives. We have political dialogue and national parliaments are commenting and sending us opinions on the work of European life and how active it has become. In 2009 we got 250 opinions and received 620 in 2011.
If we use the new subsidiarity check mechanism, from the 1,000 opinions we received since the entering into force of the Lisbon treaty in 87 cases we received so-called reasoned opinions. This means national parliaments believe metrics belong to national rather than European level. We received one from Ireland on the common consolidated corporate tax base. It is a very sensitive issue and we have tried to do our best in our reply. I hope we managed to at least partially clarify the questions sent to the Commission.
When I visit national parliaments, my last plea is usually to ask them for good co-operation in the preparatory phase of legislation. National parliaments are becoming more and more involved in public consultation and discussions on white and green books. They can have enormous input into how the Commission will formalise the legislative proposal. National parliaments should also be interested in the legislative process because Ministers come to the Council and present national positions on the proposals of the Commission.
The third phase is implementation. It is very often up to national parliaments to take their governments into a democratic accountability exercise and look at how European law is transposed and determine if it is being transposed in a correct and precise manner. This is important to ensure a cohesive approach to the application of European rules throughout the Union.
I thank the Chairman for the kind invitation to speak to the committee. I appreciate the fact that one of its first trips after the election was to Brussels. It was not even scared during the power-cut in the Berlaymont when we had to move from our meeting venue on my floor to the rather noisy canteen. Neverthesless, we managed very well. I also thank the committee for the co-operation we have established between this parliament and the European Commission. This mutual co-operation will help us to restore the confidence of Irish and European citizens in national governments and European institutions. This is one of the keys to unlocking the box of this very difficult couple of years and restoring optimism and growth in the European Union.
