Mick Barry
Ceist:7. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach to report on his attendance at the recent European Political Community meeting in Granada, Spain. [45266/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 25 October 2023
Ceisteanna (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
Alan Farrell
Ceist:8. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Taoiseach to report on his engagements during his attending of the European Political Community [45073/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:9. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the recent European Political Community meeting in Granada, Spain. [46434/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Paul Murphy
Ceist:10. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach to report on his attendance at the recent European Political Community meeting in Granada, Spain. [46436/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Peadar Tóibín
Ceist:11. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the recent European Political Community meeting in Granada, Spain. [46373/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Mary Lou McDonald
Ceist:12. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach to report on his attendance at the recent European Political Community meeting in Granada, Spain. [46425/23]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Seán Haughey
Ceist:13. Deputy Seán Haughey asked the Taoiseach to report on his attendance at the recent European Political Community meeting in Granada, Spain. [46619/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí ó Béal (13 píosaí cainte)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 to 13, inclusive, together.
I attended a European Political Community, EPC, summit in Granada, Spain, on 5 October. It was hosted by the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. The EPC is an informal forum which brings together leaders of around 50 countries from across the Continent of Europe to discuss issues of shared concern. This was the third meeting of the European Political Community. It first met in Prague in October 2022 and then in Chiinu in June 2023. It will meet again in the first half of next year in the UK.
During the summit, I participated in a round table on multilateralism, including security and geostrategic issues, co-chaired by the President of the Swiss Confederation, Alain Berset, and the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Other parallel round tables focused on digital transition and artificial intelligence, and on energy, the environment, and climate change. I held bilateral meetings with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as well as the Prime Ministers of North Macedonia, Latvia, Armenia, and the President of the Swiss Confederation.
The focus of the meeting with Prime Minister Sunak was Northern Ireland, including the UK Legacy Act, the restoration of the institutions in Northern Ireland, and the implementation of the Windsor Framework.
In my meeting with North Macedonian Prime Minister Dimitar Kovačevski, we discussed EU enlargement, including North Macedonia’s accession aspirations, as well as bilateral relations and North Macedonia’s chairing of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE.
I had an introductory meeting with the newly-elected Prime Minister of Latvia, Evika Silia, during which I congratulated her on her election, welcomed her to the European Council and discussed issues of mutual interest and bilateral contacts between Ireland and Latvia.
During my meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, I reiterated Ireland’s serious concerns about developments in Nagorno-Karabakh, offering Ireland’s assistance in responding to the resulting and evolving humanitarian situation.
My meeting with the President of Switzerland focused on bilateral relations. We also discussed our countries’ experiences of neutrality and the reflective processes under way in both countries on our respective security and defence policies.
The summit concluded with a dinner at La Alhambra, hosted by the Spanish Prime Minister and attended by the King and Queen of Spain.
Raz Segal is an Israeli historian who specialises in Holocaust and genocide studies. He is among many who in the past couple of weeks have described what Israel is doing to the people of Gaza as genocide. This is an Israeli historian. The Taoiseach may have seen many Jewish people in New York, Canada and across the world raising their voices over what Israel is doing to Gaza and describing it as genocide. For the descendants of those who were victims of the Holocaust and, in Raz Segal's case, people who are experts in this area, to be describing what Israel is doing as genocide really gives us some indication of the barbarity, savagery and brutality of what it is doing. Europe continues to actively support the Israeli state in developing, sustaining and researching the military means through which they are visiting this genocide on the Palestinians and ethnically cleansing them.
I got a very good paper from the Transnational Institute citing the details of some of this. The European Union association agreement has seen €46 billion of trade between Israel and the European Union. Israel received 1,661 grants totalling €1.2 billion in Horizon 2020. The Israelis are also involved in Horizon 2021 to 2027. This includes money for national security studies. It includes money going to the military and strategic affairs programme, the director of which, Gabi Siboni, developed systems and advocated for the use of overwhelming and disproportionate force to be used against civilian populations, and so on and so forth.
The Deputy's time is up.
Does the Taoiseach believe it is time to end European Union subsidies to the apartheid State committing genocide against Palestinians?
On 19 October last year, President von der Leyen made a speech in the European Parliament where she said: "Russia’s attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming - these are acts of pure terror. And we have to call it as such.” Then when Israel began to do precisely that with attacks against civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, cutting off men, women and children of water electricity and heating - precisely what Israel is doing to the more than 2 million people in Gaza - what did President von der Leyen do? Did she call it as such? She did not. She went to Israel and spoke about the right of Israel to self-defence without any conditions. She gave a green light to precisely that happening against the people of Gaza and against the Palestinian people. Why does the Taoiseach believe that the European Commission and the European political establishment in general has such double standards when it comes to condemning the war crimes of Russia but not condemning - and in fact giving a green light to - the war crimes of Israel?
What is happening in Gaza is horrendous. The intentional killing of non-combatants, the collective punishment, the intentional targeting of civilian infrastructure, forced displacement and the prohibition of access to food, fuel and water are illegal under international law. Any perpetrators should be stopped immediately and held accountable by all available means, but this is not what is happening. We have a situation where the EU is distorting Ireland's foreign policy at the moment. Ursula von der Leyen has distorted this policy significantly. Indeed, her latest pronouncements as she visited the United States of America were that she would stand shoulder to shoulder with the US position in relation to Gaza and Israel. The EU has just vetoed a resolution that basically looked for a pause in the fighting. Again, that distortion continues. Outsourcing foreign policy to the EU is a mistake. The Government counters this to say that the pooling of foreign policy with the EU significantly increases our voice. The latest crisis, however, has shown that this has actually distorted our voices. Where will the accountability lie in the context of Ursula von der Leyen's position and the distortion of our foreign policy?
Hearts were broken for the Israeli lives lost on 7 October, and the horrific loss has been roundly condemned. In Israel's siege of Gaza we are bearing witness to human catastrophe on an unimaginable scale. Last week, the Dáil became one of the first parliaments in the world to call for a ceasefire. It was an important international signal that other parliaments should follow. The world must demand that Israel ends the siege and the attacks on Gaza and the Palestinian people. The horrific events in the past few weeks have created a new urgency around the need for decisive international intervention. Rigorous international leadership means demanding an immediate ceasefire. That was the call from the Dáil and it must be followed by other parliaments and political leaders.
Sinn Féin has said that we will work with the Government on this because we recognise that Ireland's voice on this issue is important. That voice must always be used for peace, for justice, and for an independent and sovereign Palestine in line with international law and EU resolutions. Unified, we must call on Israel to end its bombardment of Gaza and to stop the indiscriminate slaughter. Together with one voice, we must assert the primacy of international law and dialogue as the only basis for a just resolution and a foundation for lasting and transformational peace.
Does the Taoiseach accept that it is now up to countries like Ireland to take the lead in building an international alliance in the first instance to bring about a ceasefire and to then engage with all parties to bring about a just and durable solution to the conflict?
We are aware that the European Political Community platform is an initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron. The idea was to bring all European states together, and not just those in the European Union. It has been a useful forum for networking, as we just heard from the Taoiseach, but it does put the focus on the proposed enlargement of the European Union. Consideration is now being given to expanding the EU from 27 to 35 member states or more: I think of the western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia in this regard. That will be a challenge. Ireland of course supports enlargement as a general principle. Membership of the EU for the past 50 years has been transformative for us. The current geopolitical situation also needs to be taken into account. A number of issues need to be examined if enlargement is to be facilitated, such as the EU decision-making capacity or the future of the multi-annual financial framework, MFF, as well as CAP reform. What is Ireland's approach to this discussion? Is work being undertaken by the Government as to the implications of enlargement for Ireland? Does the Taoiseach believe that the existing treaty should be utilised fully first to accommodate enlargement rather than to go down the road of treaty change?
I thank Deputies for their questions. The European Union does not have a single foreign policy. Each member state has its own foreign policy. This is very evident when one looks at the different positions held and different actions taken by the 27 member states. Depending on the case involved, we try, from time to time and on a case-by-case basis, to have a common policy. We have done that fairly successfully in respect of Ukraine, but there are dissenters, like Hungary, for example. When it comes to Israel and Palestine, it will be difficult because different countries are coming from very different perspectives with this issue and this conflict. We were able to agree compromise language, and that was the basis of the European Council statement the weekend before last. We will try to do the same over the course of the next two days. I am sure that on Thursday and Friday in Brussels we will discuss co-operation with Israel.
As we all know, there is very strong support for Israel from most EU member states, but that could change. That will depend on how Israel acts in the coming weeks and months. President Biden described it very well. He said that the events of 7 October in Israel were the Israeli people's 9/11. They were attacked, civilians were killed in huge numbers and it came as a huge shock and huge trauma to the Israeli population. The point he made, and I think it was a very valid one, was that Israel should not make the same mistakes the US made. It is very clear what he meant because the US made terrible mistakes after 9/11, which caused a lot of hurt in a lot of parts of the world and impacted on its influence. The point President Biden was making to Israel, if you read between the lines, was a message of restraint and is one we will be making as well.
Regarding international law, our view as the Irish Government is that collective punishment that deliberately targets civilians and civilian infrastructure is a breach of international humanitarian law no matter who does it. We have been very clear and consistent on that. I cannot speak for the President of the European Commission or other member states, and nor would I, but I understand that other member states come from different perspectives. Let us not forget why so many European Jews had to emigrate to their ancestral home in Palestine, in Israel. It was because of what was done in Europe, particularly the Holocaust. Many countries feel historic guilt because of their involvement in the latter. We have to understand that.
We also have to understand that when it comes to extremist Islamic terrorism, the Supernova event in Israel was not the first concert to be attacked by Islamic fundamentalists. Let us not forget what happened at the Bataclan in Paris or what happened in Manchester.
You should not be likening those events.
Other countries come from a different perspective on this and we need to make sure we understand their perspectives, even if we do not agree with them. We must also guard against rising antisemitism and rising Islamophobia, both of which are happening in Ireland and in Europe and really concern me.
We should also not forget that war crimes have been committed in our country. War crimes were committed in the name of the Irish people, although we always rejected that. Only this week, we mark the 30th anniversary of the Shankill Road bombing - a war crime if ever there was one. We need to be consistent too in our condemnation of war crimes, particularly when they are done on the territory of Ireland or done by people who claim to be acting in our name.
Or by the Irish State in the foundation of the State.
On the issue of international alliances, it is a very valid suggestion that we would try to build an international alliance that looks for a ceasefire first and a peace initiative later. To have any influence, we cannot take absolutist positions. Once you take an absolutist position your influence is gone, unless you have other forms of power. You cannot be an honest broker in that kind of scenario.
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