Trevor Sargent
Question:45 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for Finance if he will report on his involvement during Ireland’s Presidency of the European Union. [18716/04]
View answerWednesday, 23 June 2004
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Written answers
The Presidency period has been a very busy, but rewarding, period for both my Department and me.
As Minister, the most important role I assumed during the Presidency was that of President of the Council of Economics and Finance Ministers of the EU, ECOFIN and of the Eurogroup, which comprises the 12 Finance Ministers of member states whose currency is the euro. This required drawing up and publishing in advance of the Presidency a policy work programme for the Council and Eurogroup and chairing both the ECOFIN and Eurogroup meetings held each month, January to June, to address this programme. Both the Council and Eurogroup normally meet in Brussels or Luxembourg, with one informal meeting per Presidency period held in the member state that holds the Presidency.
Our informal ECOFIN meeting was held in Punchestown, County Kildare, on 2-4 April. Some 250 delegates and over 300 media personnel attended. Besides the 25 Ministers, including ten representing the countries who at that point were about to join the EU, the participants included the 25 national Central Bank governors, the President of the Commission, Romano Prodi, Commissioners Solbes, Bolkestein and Schreyer, President Trichet of the European Central Bank and President Maystadt of the European Investment Bank. The meeting was one of the largest to take place in Ireland during the Presidency and was regarded as highly successful both on the organisational and policy aspects.
As President of the Council I also represented ECOFIN and put forward its views at important international meetings with our global partners, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Group of Seven, G7, Ministers for Finance. I attended, with the Taoiseach, the European Council meeting of Heads of State or Government in March in Brussels. In addition the Minister of State at my Department, Deputy Parlon, hosted an important meeting of regional Ministers of the EU in Portlaoise, County Laois, on 26-27 February.
Other Presidency events hosted by my Department that required significant logistical preparation were the Asia-Europe Meeting, ASEM, held at Finance Ministers' Deputies level in Cork in March, and the meeting of EU budget officials in Tullamore and the meeting of Directors General for Public Administration in Dublin Castle, both of which were held in May.
The work programme priorities that I set for the ECOFIN for the Presidency can be accessed on the Presidency website at www.eu2004.ie.
Two of the most significant priorities in the programme were the promotion of economic growth and coping with the effects of enlargement. The overall programme could be summarised broadly under the following headings: preparation of ECOFIN Presidency's key issues paper for the spring European Council on the Lisbon Agenda to promote the EU economy; examination of member states' stability and convergence programmes under the Stability and Growth Pact; integration of the new member states into the EU's economic policy co-ordination and Lisbon processes; preliminary consideration of the post-2006 financial perspective that determines the medium-term framework for the EU budget, and the future regional policy in the EU; pushing forward with legislation in financial services and other sectors; four Presidency joint initiative on better regulation welcomed by Heads of State and Government at the spring European Council; and certain other areas, most notably the initiative for growth proposed by the Italian Presidency of the second half of 2003. All these elements of the programme were completed successfully.
Apart from these achievements in the ECOFIN context, my Department and I were heavily involved in the economic aspects of the EU constitutional treaty negotiations successfully concluded by the Taoiseach on behalf of the Irish Presidency at the recent European Council. Our national concerns in the negotiations in regard to taxation, economic governance and EU budget procedures were fully safeguarded in the final agreed text.
My overall assessment would be that, on both the organisational and the policy aspects, the Presidency, in the economic and financial areas represented by my Department and me, has had a very good record of achievement and in this respect has made a significant contribution towards the overall success of the Irish Presidency.