Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 July 2014
104. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the proposals, if any, he has outlined at the EU Foreign Affairs Council meetings regarding the urgent need for the European Union to play a more active role to assist in confronting the obstacles impeding a negotiated, two-state solution in relation to Israel-Palestine; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28452/14]
View answer106. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the proposals he has outlined at EU Foreign Affairs Council meetings regarding the need for an adequate programme of labelling of products due to Israel's continued expansion of settlements; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28477/14]
View answer107. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if there have been discussions at EU Foreign Affairs Council meetings regarding the need for Israel to desist from its continued expansion of settlements; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28478/14]
View answer108. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will raise at the forthcoming EU Foreign Affairs Council meeting the urgent need for an early resumption of negotiations pertaining to the Middle East peace process in view of the deteriorating situation in that region; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28480/14]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 104 and 106 to 108, inclusive, together.
Direct negotiations between the parties were suspended at the end of April, and there is no immediate prospect of the talks being resumed. The essential issues behind the breakdown were the profound lack of trust between the two sides, insufficient political commitment, particularly by the Israeli Government, to reaching an agreement, and the continued and indeed accelerated expansion of Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory throughout the period of the negotiations.
These are of course not new problems, and we have discussed them many times here in the Oireachtas, and indeed in the EU at the Foreign Affairs Council.
I have called for a substantial review by the EU of its policies and levers on the Middle East issue, and I hope this will begin at the July Foreign Affairs Council. Such a review is clearly critical if we are to maintain the prospect of a viable, two-State solution.
The EU should of course continue to give what support and encouragement it can to a resumption of negotiations, which are the only way to reach a solution. But negotiations for their own sake are of no use, there must be a real commitment to find agreement on the core issues and to make the difficult compromises that inevitably will be involved.
In my view, the EU should therefore use the influence and leverage at its disposal to give effect to its disapproval of various negative aspects of Israel’s continued occupation and policies on the ground, and above all the relentless expansion of settlements. This would build on existing measures such as the non-eligibility of settlement goods for lower tariffs, and the exclusion of settlements from EU research funding.
One element of that leverage should be the issuing of EU guidelines on labelling of settlement goods. This has been promised at EU level, but was left to one side for the moment while the talks were in progress, for fear of damaging the political atmosphere. We should now look again at moving ahead with publishing such guidelines, along the lines already followed by some Member States. If they remain stalled at EU level, I have already stated that we will be prepared instead to issue national guidelines.
