Ireland has benefited enormously from our membership of the European Union. From the huge value of structural funds to the attraction for American multinationals of having an English-speaking base in the EU, Ireland has been transformed for the better by this membership. This has led to a standard of living our grandparents could never have imagined, not only economically but also culturally, socially and educationally. Witness the enormous success of the Erasmus programme. I will refer to the huge positives I have experienced personally in Europe. As a young man, I lived for a number of years in the 1980s on mainland Europe in France, Germany and Switzerland. I experienced the extraordinary culture and history of many European countries. In Switzerland, I lived in St. Gallen, a city founded by the Irish monk St. Gall, after whom the city is called. Ireland has contributed enormously to the common European culture, heritage and values that go back a very long way. We were known as the island of saints and scholars. St. Columban and other monks founded monasteries all over Europe. One of the founders of the European Union, the French statesman Robert Schuman, in 1950 described St. Columban as the patron saint of all those who wish to build a united Europe. I lived in Hanover in what was then West Germany during the Cold War. Nearby was the so-called German Democratic Republic, more accurately called East Germany. I crossed over the Iron Curtain, as it was called then, a number of times and visited the totalitarian states on the other side. I shared an apartment with a young man who was caught trying to escape over the Berlin Wall only to be caught and imprisoned for a year and then allowed to leave. This division ended in 1990 and eastern Europe was freed but today that freedom is under serious threat. Vladimir Putin, who lived in Dresden in East Germany in the 1980s, wants to recreate that totalitarian world. The evidence is there. This can only be stopped by European countries being prepared to defend themselves. If this does not happen, our way of life may disappear. It is especially important that Germany, always the political and strategic focal point of Europe, builds its defence capability. This is not anything like the 1930s. This is Germany using its economic strength to defend European values and deter an aggressor. There was a phrase used in Europe called "realpolitik". The realpolitik of today is that Europe is under threat and it must be prepared to defend itself. With Ireland holding the EU Presidency shortly, we need to stamp our mark on European policy. For me, the stand out one is to push for implementation of the Draghi report, which addresses the European Union's lagging productivity and economic growth relative to the US and China. As the most successful economy in the European Union, we are well placed to push for the implementation of the Draghi report. Europe is lagging behind and has become enormously dependent on the US. We rely on Amazon and Microsoft for cloud services. We have very few at the forefront of AI. While regulation may be justified on a one-by-one basis, taken together it has stopped business development and has made us dependent on the US. We must look to implement the Draghi report. Ireland has a proud European history and we are European but we have a unique perspective in Europe and we have a unique link to the US. We should use these factors to foster continued prosperity in Europe.

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