 very much. Thank you, first of all, for the invitation. It's also a pleasure, I think, for me as a Pole and also as a member of parliament to have this opportunity to talk to you on Europe and to have this exchange on Europe. I remember in 2003 it was or two when you had the second referendum on East Treaty and I was engaged by the Irish government also to come and have a discussion on why we need the East Treaty because it happened so that at that time it was the condition for the enlargement, basically, if you didn't have any street you wouldn't be able to have enlargement. I must say that your speech is on the record, you have agreed to that. Yes, okay. And I remember, yes, I remember my first discussion and the radio in the morning was with some people who were against the East Treaty ratification by Ireland and when I was using the argument of how important it was for Poland and I even from the anti-European opposition at that time in Ireland I got huge support for Polish accession so I continued to be grateful to the Irish. But here I would like to start by saying that the crisis is behind us but it's not and we are depend how you count but probably most of us would agree that we are more or less in the fourth year of crisis in Europe and even though absolutely unprecedented reforms have been undertaken thus far fully recovered Europe is still quite a distant prospect and we have to admit as politicians but also as academic society in Europe that we didn't see the crisis coming we did not prevent it but I think as Europe we did react through a multi-fold approach to this economic turmoil matching this multi-dimensional nature of the crisis and we all know that all those different aspects and dimensions of the crisis but I think they are finally the most important one which is probably still to stay with us for a while is the crisis of confidence lack of confidence of everybody against everybody and I think something which which of which from which Europe will continue to suffer for a while the changes that were triggered the reforms the changes that were triggered by the crisis I think they it's important to see that they covered three major areas certainly the most famous one is the austerity a philosophy and practice and talking about it in Ireland I take all the risks but I am extremely critical about what we have done and how we have done it because we know that many initial assumptions and also measures underlying adjustment programs were mistaken and growth did not return so far and we will probably for decades discuss and raise the issues of the pace and composition of the fiscal adjustments so that was one area where we was in which we reacted as Europeans and at the same time extremely important two waves of very far reaching and truly unprecedented unsinkable before the crisis policy reforms were undertaken I'm thinking here of all the reforms related to the financial sector where we continue with reforms and the second complementing sort of part of the reforms was the is still the deep restructuring of economic governance prioritizing of course for understandable reasons the euro zone because we discovered very quickly that the pre-crisis emu architecture based on Maastricht treaty was not only incomplete but also laxly implemented so a kind of radical design shift was absolutely required and we are still in it as you know the challenge of course is as we are reconstructing our architecture as Europe as a response to the crisis we must also be aware and avoid the risks of undermining the foundations of Europe and I would just later on maybe come back to this issue we just maybe two or three issues in this context because we are reaching out more often than recently on the recent or in the recent decades before the crisis we did we are reaching out very frequently to the intergovernmental solutions also for reasons which can be justified when preparing the completion of the emu it's also I think important to see in this context that by not addressing some of the issues we are also increasing the risk of even of the erosion of what we have and I'm thinking here of not not completing the emu architecture with the fiscal part of it I think we are also undermining or weakening the monetary part of the of the architecture so there are many many I would say challenges and the risks are related also to the way we with the way we reconstruct our architecture and I would like maybe to say a few words on the challenges as I see them today because whoever you could ask everybody would probably have a different list of challenges or things to do for Europe unfortunately very lately but I think increasingly we all agree that Europe needs growth and that rape nighting it grows is a must is a probably number one challenge for Europe today but also maybe especially when I look at the challenges from the parliamentary European Parliament point of view it's the challenge of securing political legitimacy to everything that we are we are doing my personal important challenge is also the need of a new treaty I know what it means to say it in Ireland but I would just like elaborate a little bit on it as well so what I'm trying to say with this is that we should use really very wisely the momentum for treaty change so there is without any doubt the treaty change need but but it has to be it would have to be handled in such a way that it wouldn't bring all the risks that we know which are linked to do any treaty change in Europe and then as a poll I would like to say that a very important challenge which I see but which I think is real and I think everybody sees it but we we not everybody would see it as an important is the way we should manage we can manage the emerging multi-tier Europe because without doubt we are facing this division on the basis of Europe on Europe a criterion so with regard to to growth I think that we clearly failed with the austerity because the austerity was not there for austerity but the austerity was in fact supposed to bring the growth through the stability that it was supposed to introduce it was aiming at restoring the sustainable path for the for the debt we we also expected that the austerity will be a remedy against the increasing spreads we didn't take into account the fact that the spreads were growing due to both deteriorating foundations which is extremely important but also as an effect of collective panic or collective movements of panic of fear of general lack of confidence we didn't I think we underestimated the markets very clearly because markets had started to look not only on the deficits and debts but at the gross capacity of the member states much earlier that we admitted is as policy makers and decision makers in this context so I think that the these were the the markets which did not allow governments to resume borrowing and competitive cost because we made wrong assumption about about this and very quickly we also saw that the lack of liquidity is not only coming from the private investors through which the liquidity remains sparse at that time but also the banking sector behavior remained remains I would say disappointing and also in this context the ECB transmission monetary policy transmission channels remained dysfunctional throughout the crisis and basically continue to be dysfunctional so we we assumed when we introduced the austerity packages there was a lot of assumptions made which in fact were were false as the reality has shown and the austerity did not work as a machinery towards a growth with the time passing and the insistence of some prime ministers of course the roles were somewhat relaxed but I think we started to see them to admit that we hoped to achieve results which which could never come with this type of austerity so that's this reigniting growth clearly through austerity didn't work so now we see that growth will not come by itself that we need really a good orchestration of efforts at all levels of European governance European national regional local as well to get back Europe on the path towards sustainable growth but in this context the the real problem that Europe has is the competitiveness problems we don't talk yet enough I think on the competitiveness crisis that we have in Europe and in this context this huge divide between the North and the South in terms of competitiveness with the East dynamically growing in the sense but still far from from the levels that we would like to achieve in terms of competitiveness so that's one of the challenges in the context of growth the second issue is certainly the restarting what we call the Europe's convergence machinery because we the integration has started trade investment in the internal market this this has been extremely powerful growth machinery for for decades but around 10 years ago if you look at the statistics this machinery has definitely slowed down and the crisis I think added to the fragmentation of single market and this this convergence machinery with a single market at heart this is I think something which for the growth is absolutely fundamental in in Europe and the third area where we need also I think a wise policy and a smart policy is of course European enterprise the environment for European enterprises because we all know that growth does not come from what they should say but even though in the context of confidence also what politicians say matters we know it today but basically this is the European enterprises that are the the fewer for this to keep the growth really running in Europe and here we know that the enterprise sector faces currently in Europe are huge huge problems and challenges related to many many issues certainly also to the globalization and to the competitive pressure coming from the global world but also all the uncertainty related to the standards if you think of energy or climate related standards if you think now of the also transatlantic negotiations that will come there's also a lot of uncertainty how we will end up with what kind of results with regard to standards so this uncertainty the risk aversion that basically continues also in in Europe and especially for SMEs we don't have venture capital really functioning so a lot of issues which are related to environment in which European enterprise works especially small and medium-sized enterprise works that we need a lot of action there on the policy side to facilitate the gross inclination to create really the will to invest and to create jobs and make Europe also more competitive in this context of the limits of all the barriers financial barriers the lack of funding for for growth especially for SMEs we have had recently a lot of discussions also with banking sector with manufacturers in European Parliament and we clearly see that there is still a lot to do there and also ECB is fully aware of the fact that the monetary transmission monetary policy transmission channels are dysfunctional that whatever ECB is doing is maybe bringing more confidence gradually but all the policy monetary policy operations which were aiming at increasing the the capacity and also the willingness of the banking sector to restart financing growth this does not function and Mr. Draghi each time he is in European Parliament he is admitting this it's not a failure but it's sort of the lack of capacity or lack of efficiency in this which which is not only depending probably on central bank the so that's one the gross related issues the legitimacy political democratic legitimacy problem in Europe is that there is a certain paradox in those reforms which we are introducing because of the crisis because we are everybody's saying more Europe some people say maybe not more about a better Europe or but in any case there are more and more decisions which take more and more issues up to the European level for decision-making for for action so there is a kind of kind of some people say centralization other people say this federalization of the way Europe functions because of the crisis or thanks to the crisis and that of course by definition increases the distance between Europe and ordinary citizens and the the problem in Europe is also that democracy is largely and remains a largely a national dimension of our life a national issue and we have not in fact succeeded in building a supranational democracy European democracy framework we hope that with the new treaty and with the European Parliament enhanced role that this issue of democratic legitimacy will be addressed but if you think of of really of European elections I don't know the data Ireland I know for Poland turn out for European elections extremely low and that's generally in in in many many countries so that undermines in a way the democratic legitimacy of this institution and also if you now I see it when I am inside that the what matters for people there for members it's it's more the relationship with the parties than with the citizens so it's again as something that we are not really contributing sufficiently as parliament to this but secondly also you know that we go through this all the reforms and reaction to the crisis through something what this is what what would call probably piecemeal approach so there's no again finality politic is not there no we don't have the final vision we don't know really we don't present to the public as politicians as policymakers this where this ground change is aiming at so when you don't have such a vision such a strategy which for big issues we always had because when we had the single market when you were there we always had an action plan and step by step and we knew for the trade or custom union does this year 10% next year 15% so everything was now now we don't have it and when you don't have such a vision it's difficult to go to the to your sit to your voters and explain to them where we are aiming and get them on board and we so we are with this lack of vision we are unable to mobilize the extremely important I think the machinery endorse major endorsement machinery for the reforms in Europe which is public opinion which are which are people and that's also I think one of the weaknesses with regard to the democratic legitimacy issue I can also tell you that what is important is the cooperation between for all the reforms which are linking better the national policymaking with European policymaking now with European semester and all those related with these reforms we need good cooperation between national parliaments in European Parliament and we the treaty introduced the role of the national parliaments in a very sort of not very serious way because we gave the power to the national parliaments to block sinks if they consider that they are not respecting subsidiarity but that's a sort of negative instrument I remember in the convention the discussion on this instrument but we have it and now we are trying we've been trying for the last three years after the entry of the Lisbon Treaty into effect to build some relationship institutionalized relationship between European Parliament national parliaments so national parliaments come we have sort of formal statements are read again it's not really bringing us together with kind of providing a double legitimation for for what we are doing in Europe so still a long way to go to find the right cooperation between the two parliaments and then of course we have the role of European Council and President van Rompij where it's an institution which does not have legislative power but it's an institution and also it's an institution with very very often works behind the closed doors like now for the genuine EMU which is a process which was launched by by European Council some support from the Commission there are Sherpas so people working with Prime Ministers working with Mr. van Rompij now we are also having Parliamentarian Sherpas three colleagues going there to those meetings on the General and Economic and Monetary Union and the Exalter Coordination and many other things but in a way it's not clear what this institution is all about we didn't I think it's a little bit executive a little bit quasi legislative but not really very transparent so that makes also this this issue of legitimacy and leaving the European Parliament out of the debate there is this issue very important the General Affairs Council which was transparent which was traditionally preparing all the council meeting and everything was clear and the Parliament was somehow involved now the General Affairs Council is completely out we have this new process of European Council with Sherpas working so it's again sort of not helping with the democratic legitimacy at this stage and now a few words maybe on the treaty change because I I think the situation has matured to have a treaty change and if we were if we didn't have our history of treaty changes and if we didn't know how difficult it is probably would have been already and and somebody would add if we didn't have the German elections also in this year but in the Parliament there is a strong push towards I mean as much as Parliament can push anybody a strong push towards this this need of treaty change for various reasons I think and one of those is certainly the need to consolidate all the reforms that we have introduced because the reforms of those six packs two-pack the fiscal compact the all the financial assistance instrument there's an enormous amount of instruments which some of them are under community methods some of them are under the intergovernmental method because of the lack of the provisions in the treaty that would allow for a different decision making and where the UK wouldn't be able to block them for example the the move so so there is the need now to look at all those reforms and consolidate them because we are adding new reforms to things which we sought in the Parliament that they already solved now we are adding this genuine EMU reform so I think that to have the the treaty change or the convention or a process of discussing the new treaty because it doesn't have to be immediately a treaty change but to discuss all those things and to see how to put them into the framework of community method and into the the treaty this is something which which I think is is worse looking at and then of course we have a list of issues which cannot be solved without the treaty basis and the whole reform of the second pillar of the EMU the the whole fiscal capacity the the euro bonds or whatever debt mutualization if you call it like this I mean if we go for some acceptable for everybody solutions we cannot do it without the the treaty change and then there are many ideas also which we actually react very strongly negatively as a parliament in total but with strong lobbies in favor which is this idea of dividing the the parliament into the euro area parliament and and the rest or whatever you would call it there are ideas in the parliament to there were already in the in the legislative procedures as well but were erased deleted to have a special committee where only the euro area deputies would have the right to vote or to to to decide so for the time being that the we are against and we are when the treaty is very clear on this the this cannot be done but there is certainly this and this movement in this direction supported very strongly by surprisingly by european commission european commission is is very clearly aiming at i think being in the next after the election the commission for eurozone and probably with some maybe addition for the rest i'm a little bit bitter of this because we are surprised that every regulation that comes from the commission is only for euro area and then it's the parliament and it is member states that are pushing for opt-in solutions allowing opening the the the new legislative frameworks for also those non-euro member states who'd like to to to join to be in and that takes me to the last issue which is this emerging multi-tier we used to say double speed europe but now we see that it's a bit more than than speed and we used to then we used to say double tier but then we think of uk for example if you compare it as poland we are in a very different situation with regards to euro joining euro but without any doubt this division is is there and it's going to grow and for example i can tell you that as poles we understand that we have to have the deepening of the euro area integration so because we are interested being outside we are interesting in having a strong and well-functioning eurozone so we understand that the deepening there and the reforms of this core of euro but that's absolutely essential but we don't want to be left completely aside and to be on a trajectory that will take us away from from where the euro area integration is moving because the as our plan is one day and we are discussing the dates and to those things but it's difficult one day we will join and then if we don't work together very closely and if we are not part of the changes of the changing frameworks then it will be more and more difficult so we have this situation that we have the this regulatory framework changing and deepening the eurozone integration and it is having an impact potentially or or even probably you can find some examples even now on also further this integration of single market because you you will have two categories of of states there and it can also weaken the Europe standing on the global scene because the world if you talk to the Chinese they don't understand how we can again divide Europe because they always want us to come as one unity and not to to to have all those small countries and including Germany is very small for them so it's um it's an issue also globally I think but what is current approach for this so the there is no as I said generally the European Commission and preparing the the new regulations including the banking union or single supervision or a six-pack two-pack everything was always for eurozone and then it's council who is introducing the opt-ins possibility for non-euro and the parliament who's also very strong though not unanimous on on this but the challenge is the following that for every regulation we have a so do we have a case-by-case approach to this so when there is a new regulation we think how to organize the opt-in mechanism and and this is so it's like a permanent struggle I would say and just up the hill all the time and the non-euro members are supported we have Sweden we have Poland very active I think on those issues very clearly others rather I would say follow but not in the first term front so I think that we we we need to now is ex ante coordination and this genuine emu also the commission proposal is eurozone only and and this is about the reforms structural reforms so again the same battle has started so the I would say that the policy stands on the non-euro area remains kind of confused so it's not Europe has not decided really how to cope with this issue and this opt-in system probably for this we would need a kind of blueprint for opt-in so there would be a certain elements for common for all the regulations and making it clear that the the reducing the uncertainty about the role of the non-euro member states who do not have the permanent delegation so this is a very sort of confused I would say area of our work and and I some people are afraid that after the european elections next year when we will start to to formulate the commission we don't know yet how it will come to into effect but that there will be a even institutionalized focus on on euro area there are also fears those who are against the treaty change and not only the Irish but also those who who think that the treaty change would introduce this it would be a treaty for euro area with some addition in annexes for the non-euro so there is this is an issue which I think can create a lot of bad blood I would say in the years to come politically so we have to be very serious on this so but in any case if I would just say the last sentence I spoke yesterday with Yoshka Fischer on on on other issues and he used this this formula of of the erosion of Europe and I think this is an extremely adequate word because we there's no big bank nothing really big is happening to to show that Europe something is happening with Europe but if you look carefully into the public attitude into this democratic legitimacy into this idea of of going whenever there is an opportunity for intergovernmental solutions and not community methods if you think of this fragmentation of the single market that didn't come with this multi-tier Europe if you think of these signals that come from UK and we don't know what would be the impact of if there are any further discussions on public opinion on moods on and if you think of also if you talk to our German friends what they think of the Greek friends I mean there are stereotypes created and deep end which which are very damaging for the European unity so there is this risk of a kind of erosion which if we don't sort of react in the last minute then we might be too late so so it's not easy but but generally I'm optimistic I've been always saying that Europe Euro will never disappear or I could never join those who had doubts and and I will probably will never forget it to the American friends who were in New York Times basically every day something about the need for eurozone to disappear so it's a it's it's a difficult time but it was so interesting. Thank you very much.