22 Jan 2014, 11:37
Secretary General of the European Commission Catherine Day comes before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on EU Affairs tomorrow Thursday to discuss the role of national parliaments on moves towards greater economic coordination across the European Union.
22 January 2014
Dublin-born Ms Day will outline the proactive role that national parliaments have to play in the European Semester and the Annual Growth Survey.
Committee Chairman Dominic Hannigan TD says: “Catherine Day has worked at the European Commission since 1979 and, during a successful career, has covered the full spectrum of European Union policy areas, including the internal market, competition, external relations, enlargement and the environment directives. At tomorrow's meeting, she is expected to elaborate on the role of national parliaments in ever-deeper Economic and Monetary Union.
“EU countries, and particularly euro area countries, are no longer able to formulate and conduct their economic policy in complete isolation from other EU countries. The creation of this real economic union, which includes an annual European process for economic policy coordination and governance, presents both opportunities and challenges for national parliaments and parliamentarians. Tomorrow’s meeting is a timely opportunity to hear from the Commission’s most senior official on how she sees Oireachtas Members feeding into this process.
“As a Committee, we will be keen to raise with the Secretary General moves towards strengthening the social dimension of EMU. Informed by a series of meetings with key stakeholders, our Committee recently published a political contribution to the European Institutions, arguing that economic and social progress are essentially two sides of the same coin. We look forward to hearing how the EU’s shared economic governance mechanisms have regard to employment and social indicators.”
The meeting takes place tomorrow 23 January at 10 am in Committee Room 4, LH 2000. Committee proceedings can be followed live here.
Media enquiries to:
Paul Hand,
Communications Unit,
Houses of the Oireachtas,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2
P: +3531 618 4484
M: +353 87 694 9926
Committee Membership
Deputies: Eric Byrne, Seán Crowe, Timmy Dooley, Bernard J. Durkan, John Halligan, Dominic Hannigan (Chair), Seán Kyne, Dara Murphy (Vice-Chair) and Joe O’Reilly
Senators: Colm Burke, John Kelly, Terry Leyden, Catherine Noone and Kathryn Reilly