Billy Kelleher
Question:30. Deputy Billy Kelleher asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade his priorities for the Irish Presidency of the EU Council; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50175/12]
View answerWednesday, 14 November 2012
Questions (30)
Written answers
The jobs and growth agenda remains the main priority of Ireland’s upcoming Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Tackling the effects of the financial crisis will remain an important challenge for the Union, but the focus must now shift to creating the conditions for economic recovery and job creation. Delivery on concrete initiatives, building on the Compact for Jobs and Growth is a core objective of our Presidency. During the next six months as Presidency, Ireland will also work to make progress on measures aimed at strengthening internal and external trade. A strong emphasis will be attached to enhancing the EU’s trade links with the third countries to facilitate and increase EU exports, and to boost levels of Foreign Direct Investment into the EU.
Ireland will host an informal Ministerial meeting during its Presidency focussed on EU-US trade and we hope to advance a mandate for EU-US trade negotiations. Within the EU, the Presidency will work intensively to better equip the single market to deal with rapidly growing sectors of the economy, including the digital economy. Ireland will work across a number of Councils during its Presidency to advance dossiers to stimulate growth in the digital economy in areas ranging from Cyber security, to e-Identification, and from Data Protection and to high-speed broadband rollout. Ireland will also host the annual Digital Assembly in June 2013. Fighting unemployment, and particularly youth unemployment, will also be a major priority of the Presidency and will be the main focus of a meeting of Employment and Social Affairs Ministers in Dublin next February. The Minister for Education and Skills has also made the promotion of greater access to skills and training a major priority including through reaching agreement on the “Erasmus for All” programme.
Ireland will make sure that we use our Presidency to identify and stimulate areas of the economy that have the potential to deliver sustainable future growth and smarter jobs. For this reason the Presidency will work to make progress on reaching agreement on the EU’s Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation. A further priority will be sharpening European competitiveness by working to complete the European Research Area. A number of conferences will be held during the Presidency in the innovation area, aimed at ensuring broader participation, including by SMEs, in the Union’s future research funding schemes. But Europe’s economy can only grow and develop if there is stability and consumer, business and investor confidence grows. The Presidency will work to restore stability by managing the effective implementation of the EU’s economic governance measures, and in particular the European Semester process. This, combined with existing EU programmes including the European 2020 Strategy, provides a blueprint for economic reform and growth. The Presidency will also work intensively to restore confidence to the EU’s financial services sector through building agreement on the Banking Union proposals. The Irish Presidency will work hard to ensure that the EU has a budgetary framework in place to support economic recovery, through programmes that range from Horizon 2020 to a reformed Common Agriculture and Common Fisheries Policies, that includes cohesion funding to supporting regional growth. Ireland will also place a strong emphasis on reaching agreement on the marine “Blue Economy”, and promoting growth in areas including fisheries, marine biotechnology and coastal region tourism. The Presidency will give a strong priority to securing adoption of the Action Plan under the EU’s Atlantic Strategy.
I look forward to the Irish Presidency programme being published later this year. Throughout November members of the Government will continue to meet with EU partners and with several delegations from the European Parliament for discussions in preparation for Ireland’s Presidency.