Irish Delegation meets with Irish Parliament’s EU Affairs Committee

On October 16 , members of the Committee of the Regions’ Irish Delegation (Cllr. John Sheahan and Cllr. Maria Byrne) met with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on EU Affairs to outline their priorities for the Mid-term Review of the Europe 2020 Strategy.

This meeting, which was the second such meeting in 2014, provided members with an opportunity to promote, in particular, two key aspects of the Strategy to members of the Irish Parliament. These are: (a) the need for a clear territorial dimension to the Europe 2020 Strategy; and (b) a more meaningful use of the partnership approach to the planning, preparation and implementation of the Strategy in the Member States.

This meeting was initiated by the Joint Committee, which is currently preparing its submission on the Mid-term Review to the European Commission, and was a follow-up to a paper that the Irish Delegation submitted in September. In this submission, the Delegation drew from the work of the CoR’s Europe 2020 Platform. It is hoped that as a result of this work, that the Irish Parliament’s submission will reflect some of the points made by the Delegation.

In March, the Delegation also made a presentation to the Joint Committee on the preparation of Ireland’s National Reform Programme (NRP). At that meeting, Cllr. Fiona O’Loughlin representing the Delegation, made a number of suggestions for improving how Ireland draws-up its NRP and how it could better address specific regional challenges.

Copies of the submissions are available from the Delegation Secretariat: robert.collins@iro.ie