It is some time since we had an opportunity to discuss matters relating to the EC. It is unfortunate that the last report we have from the EC, the 29th report dated January 1987, shows that even though we are a bit tardy about deliberating on matters relating to Europe, equally the Community is a little tardy in sending out reports. It is disgraceful that the latest EC report available in the Library is dated January 1987. Somebody should look into this to ensure that in future the reports from the Community will be available to Members sooner than has been the case in the past.
It is opportune that we should discuss matters relating to Europe because for the first time, there seems to have been a very serious attempt made last week at the Heads of State meeting to address the various problems that have been besetting us in attaining the objectives of European union both on a political and financial base. It is heartening to see that success has been reached in the financial area and that there is a chance within the next few years, that the finances of the Community will be brought to what they should be. It is also heartening to see that there will be benefits for Ireland and for the other smaller nations of the Community in that there will be a change in how the contributions towards the European finances are gauged. It is a major breakthrough that we are getting a straightforward changeover from the largely VAT-based contributions to contributions based on GNP. There will be extra funds available to Ireland because of this and that.
For many people the EC has been far less than a success. When one sees the huge increase in unemployment that has beset the nations of Europe over the past number of years, it can be said that the European ideal has not been a successful one, particularly for the young in our society and, indeed, for those who have been working in traditional industries. The loss of jobs in every European country has been enormous. Unfortunately, the loss of jobs in smaller countries, like Ireland, has been much greater than in the stronger economies, such as Germany. One of the reasons for our entry into the EC was to avail of the markets in Europe to increase our job potential and to improve the standard of living of our people. We have a market of 320 million people. As a group of countries we are the biggest importers in the world but the benefits of this huge market have not yet been attained by the people, particularly in this country and in other smaller countries.
I hope, as a result of the meeting last week, and because the finances of the Community are being addressed in a sensible way for the first time, that this country will benefit to the extent of providing jobs for our very large number of young people. This will be of benefit to the people and the nation in general. At present we educate people to the highest level and unfortunately because of the lack of cohesion in the European market a large number of these people have to go outside the market to get jobs. First, they have to go outside their country; secondly, they have to go outside the EC; and they end up benefiting stronger economies outside the European scene.
Since we last discussed European matters the Single European Act has come into force and this will have a bearing on the progress of the Community. It will have benefits which will accrue to Ireland but, equally, there are challenges to be faced in that the cross-country barriers will disappear in many areas of business and there will be extra competition. This will be very good in certain areas, but it will be detrimental in others. It is about time there was real competition in the area of finance. Mention was made during the discussions on the previous legislation which went through of the huge profits the banks are making in this country, often to the detriment of business people and to the detriment of job creation. It is time that banking became genuinely competitive. I welcome the fact that there are indications that we will have international banking with real competition and that the present banking cartel will be broken up and that people will be able to get money at a reasonable price. This should be of benefit not alone to the banks but to everybody.
Another area that has been of major concern for a number of years has been the insurance industry. Again, there has not been real competition in the insurance industry in Ireland. The cost of insurance is diabolical. When persons have claims they find that the small print is so small that it cannot really be read but it has a huge effect on the claimant's rights under a number of policies. The cost to business of public liability, the cost to business of motor insurance and the cost of insurance for young people is horrendous. The profits, it is said, in insurance are very small but the profits which insurance companies make on the investment of the funding from premiums are quite large. It could be said that the insurance businesses are more involved in banking more than they are in insuring people.
The completion of the internal market over the next number of years is an important element in the chance of progress. For too long we have had a fragmented market in Europe. We have not been able, as they have in the United States and Japan, to use the huge market we have to the best advantage because of the problems associated with a fragmented market, with fragmented tax regimes and with border controls for goods travelling from country to country. We can only achieve the aims of an integrated Community when border controls — frontier controls — disappear and when the tax regimes within the Community are brought to a reasonable similarity.
Since we last discussed a similar motion we have had a breakdown in financial markets which seemed to many people to be of a horrendous nature and we have heard of the huge losses made by individuals and companies because of the failure in financial markets but, of course, these failures were to a large degree failures on paper. The price of shares had reached heights to which they were not entitled to go, and which had no bearing on the value of the companies in which the shares were being traded. Paper changed hands, at enormous profits to certain individuals but, again, this was of little value to businesses or workers in the financial markets. The computer seemed to take over and, thankfully, the computer seemed to have got it wrong. People in the financial markets, as in other markets, are now getting back to dealing with matters relating to finance as they should have been dealt with all the time.
Since we last discussed this matter we have had huge threats to our environment within Europe. In particular, we have had the threat to our environment, which is a very serious threat and which will continue for many years, as a result of the horrific accident at Chernobyl. This has proved that, whether they be inside or outside the market, countries do not stand alone when they are addressing themselves to energy production, or to the production of elements which can be harmful to the environment. The accident at Chernobyl was a preventable accident and we must ensure that we have every control over what happens in the production of energy, or in the production of elements which can be harmful to the environment.
The co-operation we are getting from Britain in this area is not what it should be, as instanced by the Trawsfynydd and other experiments. We have a situation where Britain seems to cock a snook at the rest of Europe and in particular at us when it comes to nuclear production of energy from old fashioned outdated nuclear reactors. The EC on a Community basis will have to ensure that within any country in Europe the Community has the right to check everything that goes on in that area. If they do not have that right we could have a major catastrophe such as that which befell Europe as a result of the Chernobyl incident.
The spread of AIDS in the past couple of years has been one of the greatest epidemics to hit both Europe and the rest of the world. This disease presents a great danger to humanity within the Community. This is a matter to which the Community has not addressed itself. It may be that certain people do not want to admit that this is a threat of enormous magnitude but the Community must address itself to the problem with more diligence than it has done in the past. It is something that will not go away. It has enormous potential for death and also in terms of personal relationships.
Apart from being the biggest market in the world the Community is the largest contributor of aid to world bodies. Member governments should be complimented that they have always addressed themselves to aid on the basis of need and not on the basis of political implications. One of the reasons certain major traders and major countries do not get involved in sending aid to particular countries is because of the political situations in these countries. Unfortunately poverty does not recognise politics. Because certain countries do not agree with the politics of countries which are in dire need sometimes the aid is not as heartily given as it should be. The European countries in general have been very good in this area.
However, the delivery of aid should be addressed more realistically. There is not much point in sending grain to Ethiopia if it affects the small farmers there when they do have a harvest and suddenly find they cannot sell the only cash crop they have because food is coming in totally free. This eliminates from the budget of the small indigenous farmer any hope he had of a cash flow. The objectives of organisations like Gorta should be the objectives we should have in terms of our aid, that is, to provide the means for people to provide for themselves. At times there will be the need to send food urgently but we must address ourselves to the realities of small farming in these donee countries.
The increase in technology and technological transfers has not been addressed on a Community-wide basis. I am glad that we set up a ministry to deal with technology immediately after the last election, developments in that area are being seen already. That is another area that has not been addressed significantly by the EC.
In Ireland there is quite an amount of emigration at present, there is a lot of immigration into the EC as well. This immigration to a large degree is from Third World countries and the people coming in unfortunately are not treated within the EC as having equal status. One only has to go to cities like Paris or Brussels or to cities in Germany to see the huge numbers of people from Third World countries working in very menial and lowly paid jobs who live in Third World conditions. They are being ripped off by landlords in the EC countries. They are a group of people who must be looked after because not alone is it in the interests of the people who come in for these jobs but it is equally in the interests of the European Community that these people have a proper place to live and that their working conditions should improve.
One of the reasons we should address this matter is that the numbers of people coming in are growing at an enormous rate, their birth rate is much higher than the European average and it is true that there is one arrondissement of Brussels at present which has a total Muslim representation on the city council there. The same would apply in certain areas in Paris. This is a growing European problem. It does not affect us that much but on a matter of common humanity it is something the EC should address. The EC has a number of agreements which are made with countries outside the EC. We must ensure that if we are trading with countries from outside the EC, these countries obey the rules of association with the EC.
I must address myself particularly to problems associated with trade with Israel. The Israelis have a very good co-operation convention with the EC from which they benefit enormously. It is very hard to quantify it except to say that every night, for five months of the year a Boeing 727 leaves Tel Aviv with nothing but cut flowers. The level of trade with Israel is enormous but unfortunately we are dealing with a country which does not give to people who are under their control any degree of support.
In recent months the EC Commission made an agreement with Israel that goods which were manufactured or produced in the West Bank and Gaza could be brought into the EC without going through the Agresco, the Israeli agricultural co-op on the one hand, or through any trading group in Israel for manufactured goods. The agreement was that 12 of the chambers of commerce in the West Bank and Gaza would have rights to stamp certificates of origin and the certificate of origin would state that the goods came from the West Bank or Gaza and would be signed by one or other of the 12 chambers of trade. This would have meant a big boost to the people in the occupied territories as they would have been able to get their goods into Europe without going through Israel and They would not have to pay Israeli merchants for the right to export.
As an indication of the goodwill of Israel — and this is the reason I raise it — the Gazan fruit company decided to send four crates of oranges as a commercial present to Claude Chasson, the EC Commissioner, as an initial test case. Two were to go by air and two were to go by sea. Seven weeks later the oranges were still sitting in Gaza because the Israelis would not allow them to go through. The week before last the Israeli Minister to the EC was called in as a result of a problem which arose with goods imported from Ramallah in the West Bank into England. The stamp of the Ramallah chamber of commerce was on the certificates of origin and the country of origin was down as the West Bank.
The goods arrived in England but luckily somebody at import control checked the documentation and found that the documents had been forged. The documentation had been changed from Ramallah to Israel and the country of origin was stated as Israel. The EC made an agreement in good faith with Israel but the Israelis would not abide by the agreement. The two incidents are actual facts and they can be confirmed through the EC Commission, through Mr. Morgan who is the EC Commission representative in Tel Aviv.
As Europeans we must address ourselves to the plight of the Palestinians who are living in such horrific conditions. Some are daily being beaten to death. Some are being shot and others are being subjected to the most horrific treatment — I will not call it genocide — they are being treated as inhuman by an Israeli Army. This is the army of a country which is supposed to be a friendly country towards Europe. When I say people are being beaten to death I mean they are being beaten to death. I have medical certificates here which are horrific, showing the numbers of deaths and the numbers injured.
Israel must be brought before the table of international justice. We in Europe have a part to play in this. The Europeans played a major part in the setting up of the State of Israel. European countries, apart from Ireland, raped and ravaged the Middle East for many hundreds of years. The problems in Israel are to a large degree the responsibility of Europe. Europe can play a major part in trying to resolve the problems in that area. There is only one way the problems can be resolved and, that is, to ensure that the Palestinians get a State of their own. This is admitted by everybody in the world apart from the Israelis and to a lesser degree by the United States of America. The Israelis say that they will not talk to the PLO because they are terrorists. There will be no peace in that area until the Israelis get down to talking to the Palestinians and until a Palestinian State emerges. Europe can play a major role in this. An international conference should be convened. Over the past number of years the EC have supported that notion.
The best way to resolve any problem is for the two protagonists to sit down face to face. It must happen sooner or later. The reason an international conference is possibly the best way at present is that the Israeli Government will not take any steps towards the resolution of the problem. In the Knesset — the Israeli Parliament — there is an inept parliament who cannot make decisions and who have to be spurred on by some outside influence. The major outside influence in the past has been the United States. The only decision of any major importance made by Israel over the past number of years since 1948, was the reduction in the level of inflation which was forced upon them by the United States because of the huge inflation rates caused by the devaluation of the shekel in Israel.
The Camp David accords were at the instigation of America and the Egyptian-Israeli accord again, was at the instigation of the USA. Israel on their own will do nothing. They must have outside influence and, in the end, the problem can only be resolved by the Israelis sitting down at some stage face to face with the terrorists. In the past there have been terrorists on the one side and freedom fighters or patriots on the other.
There is not a country in the world that did not have to sit down and resolve its problems, France had to do it with Algiers. Britain has had to do it with many countries, including Ireland. The European Community must sit down and resolve their problems. One might wonder why we should spend so much time speaking on this issue which is of importance not only to the Middle East region but to those of us in Europe. It is the near east; it is very close to us and a number of countries in that area have developed a nuclear potential. There is a certain amount of instability in many countries and what happens in that area could very well break across the boundaries into Europe and Europeans could find themselves engulfed in a major conflict in that area.
I am not suggesting that all the conflicts in the area will be resolved if the Israeli-Palestian conflict is resolved but at least it would be one element in the equation which would have a stabilising effect, which would be of strategic importance in terms of world strategy and of major importance to the people of the major religions in the world, when one considers that the three major religions in the world have their origins in that area. Europe is going through a period of relative political stability and because of this stability it can address itself to instabilities in areas outside the Community where it has connections.
The report before us is the 29th report: I hope we get the 30th report before January 1992. By that stage the internal market, as planned, will be complete. I hope what was started in Brussels last week will continue, that the arrangements that are being made in terms of the financing of the Community will bear fruit and that the disproportionate amount of money and the good things in life which are held by the central Europeans will be spread out and that as a result we, on the periphery of Europe, will be able to benefit as was originally intended. I welcome the opportunity to speak to this motion and I sincerely hope that in the future we will be able to deal with European matters more quickly than we have been able to in the past.
