The Irish Presidency Work Programme

Ireland took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union at the start of the year, and last Wednesday Taoiseach Enda Kenny, leader of the Fine Gael-Labour (EPP-PES) coalition government, outlined the priorities of the presidency to the European Parliament. Sustainability, jobs and growth are the central mantra of the presidency, though the familar buzzwords didn't stop Kenny from attempting rhetorical flight in the Strasbourg chamber, enthusing about the European family.

In his speech to the European Parliament, Kenny outlined a large work programme, from CAP and CFP reform to collective copyright management and data protection. The Data Protection package is one of the biggest legislative changes and a flagship policy of the Commission. There's been worries that the law won't be passed before the parliament ends, causing the draft to lapse and the work to go to waste, so there will have to be a big push from the presidency to make progress here.

Interestingly, while he stressed the need to pass the 2-Pack of legislation (which I’ve written about here) and the importance of the European Semester, Kenny also expressed a willingness to engage with the Parliament on the democratic deficit – let’s see if any constructive measures make it to the statute books.

A major topic was, of course, breaking the link between sovereigns and banking debt, with the banking union and progress on the implementation of the Single Supervisory Mechanism. On trade, Kenny looked forward to the authorisation and opening of negotiations with the US, along with negotiations with Japan, Canada and ASEAN.

Finally, Kenny couldn't help plugging Ireland's big tourism campaign - The Gathering!

 

You can see a list of the measures behind these priorities here.

Fiscal Compact Plus: The 2-Pack of Legislation

The Fiscal Compact and the European Stability Treaty may still have obstacles to overcome before they fully enter into force across the signatory Member States, but the Fiscal Compact has its origins in the six-packof legislation adopted last year by the European Parliament and Council. That the Parliament had a full and equal say over the substance of the Fiscal Compact as EU legislation shows that it’s come a long way from the stereotype of the cross-border talking shop and it now decides on big ticket European issues.

The six-pack hasn’t marked the end of Eurozone legislation however, with a two-pack being introduced at the end of 2011. The two-pack consists of a proposed regulation for the Eurozone on the monitoring and assessing of draft budgetary plans under the excessive deficit procedure (PDF), and a proposed regulation on the strengthening of economic and budgetary surveillance of Member States experiencing serious difficulties in financial stability (PDF). I’ll just call these the “Excessive Deficit Regulation” and “Financial Stability Regulation” respectively for short. Both proposals would increase the Commission’s role in Member States’ fiscal affairs.

The European Parliament has voted on reports on these proposals in Committee stage, but the Socialists and Democrats Group abstained from the report votes after they failed to delay the vote (they wanted to revisit the provisions after the French elections). The votes were close enough that the Committee referred the reports to plenary to gauge political support in the EP as a whole.

In the following blog posts I’ll look at each proposal in turn and the Parliamentary reports:

1. Excessive Deficit Regulation.
2. Financial Stability Regulation.