Maureen O'Sullivan
Question:119. Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan asked the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence the bilateral meetings he has had with his EU counterparts to date in 2019, in tabular form. [29492/19]
View answerTuesday, 9 July 2019
Questions (119)
Written answers
As part of my St Patrick's Day Programme, I visited Cyprus and met with my Ministerial colleagues and had a wide-ranging discussion on security, defence and EU and UN issues more generally. In the course of my attending the UN Ministerial Peacekeeping Conference in New York in March, 2019, I had bilateral meetings with ministerial colleagues from The Netherlands, Poland and Hungary. A meeting with representatives from all 28 EU member States and the EU External Action Service in support of EU/UN Cooperation in peacekeeping and crisis management was also hosted at senior official level in Ireland's Permanent Representation to the United Nations as part of my visit to the UN.
I continue to engage with my EU counterparts in relation to European Defence and Security matters and use the opportunity at EU Ministerial meetings to have discussions with my EU colleagues. My engagement with EU Colleagues on a wide range of areas of mutual interest is also reinforced by engagement at official level and, in this regard, high-level strategic dialogue meetings have taken place this year with France in February and with the UK in April.