VISIT OF PRESIDENT ROBINSON SPEAKING NOTES DURING VISIT TO COUNCIL (COREPER) 15, MAY, 1995
VISIT OF PRESIDENT ROBINSON SPEAKING NOTES DURING VISIT TO COUNCIL (COREPER) 15, MAY, 1995
Meeting with Ambassador de Boissieu (President of Coreper) and Secretary-General Trumpf of Council Secretariat.
- I am pleased to have this opportunity to visit the Council as an institution, the decision-making heart of the European Union. It is a nice coincidence to be here within a week of Schuman Day, the day on which the visionary contribution of the Foreign Minister of France to the construction of Europe is commemorated.
- The great volume of business dealt with here and the seemingly ceaseless round of meetings at all levels testify to the wide coverage and to the intensity of the process of European integration. Certainly that is our experience in Ireland. Ministers responsible for almost all policy areas have, through their involvement in Council discussions deepened their own knowledge of the Union, its workings and its great potential.
- With such a range of agenda items and now with 15 members of the Council, good preparation of meetings is vital. The Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) plays the key role in this area. It ensures good preparation not only in its own meetings, but in its general supervision of all of the subsidiary working groups.
- I should like to mention the vital and excellent work of the General Secretariat of the Council, with which Coreper works so closely.
- The system of rotation of the Presidency of the Council is a valuable feature. It has certainly brought out in a clear way to the Irish public the pooling of resources and the joint management of interests that is a hallmark of the European Union method.
- Preparations are well under way for the Irish Presidency in the second half of 1996. It will be a stimulating and interesting, if demanding, period in which to be in the chair.
- I should like to take this opportunity to wish the French Presidency of the Council every success with the completion of its programme as it moves into the busy weeks between now and the European Council.