 Thank you very much and it's a pleasure to have the opportunity to live France in such a context and to come to another very interesting country. I had already visited in the past but which happened to have another vote at the end of the month with the referendum on the so-called fiscal compact and the European stability mechanism meaning a vote directly in relation with the team of my address which is European solidarity in the in the Eurozone crisis. So in the Q&A session right after my speech we may come back more in details into the current affairs I would say but in my previous address I would like to shed light on the way this European solidarity mechanism has been put in place not only during or facing the Eurozone crisis but also in the past because this is also very enlightening for our debates. I will do it by mentioning the Jacques Delors triptych but you've already done it competition that simulates cooperation that reinforces and solidarity that unites it's important to mention this triptych because this triptych in Jacques Delors mind shows illustrate the fact that solidarity at the European level is not a given it's something which need to be built progressively built through interstates compromises packages of different kinds it's more given at the national level there is a kind of sentimental dimension we are all united as French or Irish it's not the case at the European level so it's even more important to try and identify how this European solidarity has been put in place and it's interesting to do it in Ireland because Ireland in the past and Ireland today is I think a very good example of the way this European solidarity can be used positively for the benefits of the Irish people but also for Europe in general so I will do it I will tell about these these different issues by taking some distance from the present actuality and mentioning first the way a European solidarity was established during within the internal market and taking some references to the Irish case and then after I will come to the Eurozone crisis and a new European type of solidarity which had which was not programmed which was even excluded by the treaty which was put in place under the pressure of the of the events and finally my third point will focus on the next referendum the issues of the referendum you will have in Ireland at the end of the of the month so for the first aspect solidarity and the internal market we have there a core principle of the internal market as theorized by Jack Dullo and his triptych but even before a core principle since the foundation of the common market why is that because the internal market the common market put in place by the Roman treaty was to favor this the free movement of products and then of people capital and services so was to favor some countries and have more negative impact or less positive impact on some others so in this light we can already see the the reason why the common agricultural policy was put in place the common agricultural policy was put in place on the base on the basis of a deal between France and Germany but not only France promoting the CAP the Netherlands were also in favor of the CAP and the deal with was the internal market will favor the German industrial products so in compensation we may we should find a way to restore the balance and then to promote the French and Dutch agricultural product the very reason for the creation of the CAP is this one so more solidarity for the farmers because there is a competition which stimulates on the wide side and which will stimulate of course not only German products but mainly German products on the other side a kind of solidarity which will also sustain French farmers and then Irish farmers and many others that is the first step there was another striking steps including from Ireland in the 70s which is one of the creation of the regional policy the regional policy was put in place because you're again for very pragmatic reason the UK and Ireland plus Denmark were to become members of the common market and they were not to receive a lot of European money they were to face an important competition from the other members of the community and then there were there was a crystallization at that time around the idea of creating new tools solidarity benefiting to the territories lagging behind or to the countries a bit below the EU average in terms of GDP per inhabitant and the very creation of the regional policy which is a very important solidarity policy of the EU is this one again in the framework of this single market and common market competition game and so the ERDF was established in the 70s and the dollar packages in the 80s and 90s give a very important boost to this kind of regional and structural policies which are now the first the first element of the EU budget so it's important to have this this genesis in mind because this illustrates why today the EU budget is mainly a budget promoting solidarity between territories between countries and why this budget could play such an important role in the development of many European countries so of course if I take one second or rather one minute the example of Ireland this road has been played because some countries and Ireland is one of them took advantage of this European solidarity they used this European solidarity very well of course Irish impressive development of the 70s 80s 90s is not only linked to this external head it is first and foremost due to the efforts made by the Irish people the Irish economy and we so we can see if we compare with some other countries which benefited very very massively from structural funds that they use them let's say less well they the impact was less impressive than in that in Ireland so competition that stimulates and solidarity that unites this tryptics is diptych in this case was very well illustrated by the case by the case of of of Ireland which is a success story in this European first generation of solidarity mechanism to finish on this point I will mention a last less known statement by Jacques Delors when the Irish people voted no another at a referendum on the Lisbon treaty I think and I didn't know him at that time and he had said well I'm a bit disappointed by this vote it makes me think of a movie called take the cash and run you need to understand what he had in mind when saying this he had the impression that the EU solidarity had made has made a lot had made a lot for the Irish development and that there was a kind of well behavior vote which is totally normal democratic of course but which which did not perceive quite positively enough this EU added value and what he had in mind in addition was the corporate tax level of Ireland I will come back on this during the question and answer sessions but I wanted to make this appear in at this stage of the of my of my presentation personally I don't think that this corporate tax issue is that striking or that important economically speaking but politically speaking as you are probably all aware of it is a part of the image of Ireland within the European Union and it has been used and mentioned when dealing with the eurozone crisis because as you may remember President Sarkozy former president Sarkozy used this element of you know so-called flat tax for low tax 12.5% corporate tax to ask the Irish authorities to raise such level if they wanted to have in return more solidarity from the EU I don't think it was right to do this I want to make this point clear but it just to illustrate the link made in many European mine between the EU solidarity on the on the on the one hand and on the other hand this fiscal strategy which is adapted to the Irish economy but which is sometimes badly perceived so this this mention of Nicolas Sarkozy leads me to the second part of my presentation the core of the presentation which is the eurozone crisis and the solidarity which has been put in place if we look at the Lisbon treaty one of the striking part is that there have been new closes of solidarity created to face natural catastrophe to face terrorist attacks there is even an energy solidarity close which has been inserted after the crisis of the gas between Europe Ukraine and Russia there are these free new closes whose practical impact is sometimes not that obvious but in the principle you have this affirmation that the EU countries should be should demonstrate solidarity when facing crisis but these free crisis natural catastrophe terrorist attacks energy problems are not supposed to be created by the countries in question there are victims and all the EU countries could be victims of a terrorist attacks or natural catastrophe my point is to say that there is no moral as a there there is no moral responsibility which may be identified and of course the situation was extremely diverse when dealing with the eurozone functioning because at the very beginning of the of the story when the eurozone was created of course this issue there was a solidarity was debated but the solution found was very clear the solution was that all EU countries or all eurozone countries should behave properly respecting the so-called stability and growth pact and that no bailout close should be adopted because the adoption of a no bailout close ex ante would inhibit the countries to make the appropriate efforts because they would have known in advance that in case of problems the EU would save them so there was really the it was not totally I mean it was not totally a new situation the fact to have a crisis in the eurozone and the fact not to know what to do in fact the debate had taken place and the final outcome was based on this let's say philosophical arbitration saying we should not bail out the countries we should not tell them that they will be bailed out because that will put pressure on them to become more rigorous to stay or to become more rigorous and more stable that was the theory and then then came the crisis of the eurozone then came a very very violent crisis which finally led the european authorities to change minds to change practices to change minds it's not that you're able to change practices because as you know many solidarity mechanisms have been put in place through bilateral means at packages and then rather multilateral means intergovernmental means sorry the so-called european stability fund and then now the european stability mechanism at the EU level to help the countries struggling and to help the countries which can no longer have an access to the european market bonds because the interest rates are much too high so this has been put in place but it was totally new and of course in compensation the EU authorities asked for even further structural efforts by the countries benefiting from these external ads so you know this very well because island benefited from an ad packages of around 85 billion euros with a memorandum of understanding for the three years period till 2012 2013 and in in compensation island made a lot of efforts uh i want to stress this you know them very well but we maybe listen to a bit out of island it's important to stress to underlie the efforts made in island for at least two reasons the first one is that there is an asymmetry in countries like in countries like france germany between the supposed high level of ad given to island portugal greece and other countries on the one side and the the level of the efforts perceived from this country to be clear the cost of the ads are overestimated and the cost social economic political cost of the structural adjustment measures taken by island of other countries are under estimated so i want to say that it's very impressive to have seen such efforts made by the irish people in terms of wages reduction in terms of job cuts in terms of restricting the banking sector we may come back on this during the quinae session very important and massive effort and i want to stress my point on this for another reason which is that these efforts are about to create a very a more positive situation from island and this is also very interesting island is about seen from france in from a bit far but when compared with greece for example but with portugal with spain is about to become a new success story in the last period and we know that of course this is said from far we know that the unemployment rate in island is very very high we know that the crisis is not over in island and elsewhere but it's striking to state that the situation is getting better that the growth prospects in island are getting better are positive which is not the case in greece that there is a kind of stability political stability in island and then that island could become this again a success story to illustrate so the positive impact of european solidarity accompanied by many and very impressive domestic structural efforts so i wanted to insist on this before addressing my third and last point which is the vote to intervene at the end of may in island because of course this vote takes place in a particular period for island kind of recovery period and for europe i could not really use the same term for europe i'd say that europe is still in a troubled period of uncertainty so this vote of course will play a role in the way europe is looking at island but more generally at its situation facing this very impressive crisis we have gone through about the contents of the choice you all know the so-called fiscal compact you all know the european stability mechanism it's the perfect illustration of the combination because between european solidarity and national responsibilities the fact to vote on both issues the fact to have the one and the other or to have none of them meaning to have the discipline linked to the fiscal compact and then the solidarity derived from the european stability mechanism maybe one one word on the discipline we should not overestimate the impact of the fiscal compact because as it has been said quite frequently the older stability and growth pact has been reformed already through the six packs and then i think the disciplines have been reinforced already and the discipline will be reinforced and are reinforced because the six packs came into force some months ago so the added value of the fiscal compact in this direction is not that huge and should not be overestimated on the contrary the added value of the european stability mechanism is important it's substantial because we will have a european mechanism a permanent european mechanism which was difficult to predict four years ago we will have it and it will be used as an insurance mechanism in in case of trouble in case of domestic troubles in case of systemic trouble about the context not the content the context of the vote i would have that of course there is a growing debate on balance to establish not between solidarity and responsibility but between austerity and growth because true that we are in a situation where the growth prospect of the EU and of the eurozone are quite low sometimes negative and of course this can play a role and you probably saw that the french president has intention to try and have a more balanced approach at the EU level in his conversation with angeles merkel this afternoon in berlin with the idea that too much discipline could create an austerity which could create which could kill the growth prospects of course he has a point in in in saying this and we could see a kind of compromise a european compromise on the necessity to apply the stability pact or the fiscal compact on the one side to risk to to to have solidarity mechanism in case of trouble and then to have some growth promoting measures but i mean to promote european growth through european means will not preclude the member states to go on reforming what they have to reform it is not an alternative it will create an incentive from the EU level to ease the situation but it does not create an alternative as regards the necessity to implement structural reforms or to finish to implement structural reforms which had been implemented here in ireland so it's important to to to to state this and second point on the measures to be taken at the european level or in a european context there are measures favoring the investment which are supported by the french president but of course there are also another type of measures we would say more liberal measures in the letter of the 12 signed by your prime minister these measures were mentioned there are measures needed at the european level we will have discussions on the internal market by the end of the year and probably also measures needed at the domestic level according to the situation and the tradition of all EU countries of course my final point is to say that the choice made by the irish people will be less dramatic than other choices made in the past but is expected and will be perceived as a symbol from the from the other countries of europe it's less dramatic because the island will not be able a no vote will not block the process a no french vote will not block the process either by the way the fiscal compact will enter into force after 12 years on countries we have ratified it 12 three of them did this already it's not that difficult to reach the level of 12 so there is no leverage to renegotiate easily the fiscal compact but i mean there will be more less pressure on the irish votes that's the positive aspect of the situation if island was to vote no island would still benefit of the current aid package of 85 billion euros provided the structural reforms are implemented but island would not benefit from the european stability mechanism much bigger mechanism permanent mechanism and then we'd probably lose the insurance aspect of this pact it's not only a fiscal compact it's also an insurance compact and in an uncertain situation would lose the possibility to have in case of troubles even if the success story is going on but in case of systemic trouble not only domestic trouble the possibility to have to benefit from this european permanent solidarity mechanism not only stability but in reality solidarity mechanism so of course this choice is this choice will not be dramatic but it will be symbolic and it will tell europeans if island is able to go on in the new path it had to to follow right after the crisis restoring confidence progressively restoring its export capacity restoring its growth and then illustrating the positive virtues of this deal between european solidarity and national and national efforts i would finish on an anecdote twofold anecdote on this expression of jack the lord take the cash and run because in fact i i just realized that i mentioned two two different types of run island run a marathon already between the 70s and the 80 90s for the marathon uh to reach a level of GDP per inhabitant much more superior to the EU average this was the first marathon and then the crisis happened and island has undertaken another marathon president bowser said this is not a sprint to recover from the crisis this is a marathon the greek should be an r running such a marathon too i would say that island could have a choice in going on running this marathon or choosing the other term of the alternative in jack the lord's mind was take the cash and run it was not a marathon it was running away with the money already already received and acting on its own this is a very symbolic choice and i remember another um marathon a literary one uh the one proposed by uh ulysses james joys ulysses and i remember that the first word of the ulysses is stately stately plump stately plump and the final one is yes so i wish you a yes at the end of may thank you very much for your attention