Jan O'Sullivan
Ceist:85 Ms O'Sullivan asked the Minister for Finance his priorities for the Council of Finance Ministers for the period of Ireland's Presidency of the EU; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25781/03]
Written Answers. - EU Presidency.
The overall national programme for the Irish Presidency of the EU of January to June 2004 is being drawn up by the Government at present and will be published in December, shortly before the commencement of the Presidency. The period of the Presidency will be momentous in that it will mark a major step forward in the enlargement process, with ten new member states due to join the EU on 1 May 2004.
The ECOFIN Council programme will form an important part of the overall national programme. I shall be chairing the six meetings of the ECOFIN Council – one each month – that will arise in the Presidency. My Department and I have been working on the ECOFIN Council programme for some time and will continue to do so up to the time of publication in December.
It will be appreciated that the ECOFIN programme, besides having a distinctive Irish input, must also take into account the concerns of my fellow ministers from the other EU and accession states, the Commission and the Parliament. I will continue to have discussions with these important interests.
It is already evident that among the priorities in the ECOFIN programme will be: ECOFIN's input to the Lisbon process and to the spring European Council to discuss that process, including the preparation of the ECOFIN Presidency's key issues paper – the Lisbon process aims, among other things, to have the EU become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy in the world by 2010; continuing to ensure macro-economic stability and structural reform to underpin the anticipated recovery in the world economy, which will include examination of the members states' programmes within the Stability and Growth Pact; integration of the ten acceding countries into the EU's economic policy co-ordination multilateral surveillance and Lisbon processes; the issue of the acceding countries' membership of the exchange rate mechanism, also known as ERM 2, which could arise after they become full member states on 1 May 2004 – these countries will be required to join the ERM 2 for a period prior to adopting the euro; preliminary consideration of future financing of the EU through the EU budget in the period after the current Agenda 2000 agreement ends – that is, from end-2006 onwards, including future regional policy in the EU; ongoing work on financial services legislation and other legislation; and, depending on progress in the current Italian Presidency, other issues that could arise are economic-financial aspects of the Intergovernmental Conference on a future constitution for the EU and the further development of the action for growth investment initiative launched by the Italian Presidency and due to be considered at the upcoming European Council in December.
Overall, I am confident that the ECOFIN Council in the period of the Irish Presidency will make very substantial progress in pushing forward with the ambitious programme of work that I have outlined.