Mick Barry
Ceist:5. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach to report on his engagements at the special meeting of the European Council on Ukraine and the EU budget. [7451/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 21 February 2024
Ceisteanna (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
Seán Haughey
Ceist:6. Deputy Seán Haughey asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the recent special meeting of the European Council on Ukraine. [7795/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
James Lawless
Ceist:7. Deputy James Lawless asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the recent special meeting of the European Council on Ukraine. [7797/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Jim O'Callaghan
Ceist:8. Deputy Jim O'Callaghan asked the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the recent special meeting of the European Council on Ukraine. [7798/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Paul Murphy
Ceist:9. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach to report on his engagements at the special meeting of the European Council on Ukraine and the EU budget. [7879/24]
Amharc ar fhreagra
Richard Boyd Barrett
Ceist:10. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach to report on his engagements at the special meeting of the European Council on Ukraine and the EU budget. [7882/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraFreagraí ó Béal (10 píosaí cainte)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 to 10, inclusive, together.
On 1 February, I attended a special European Council meeting in Brussels.
The main item on the agenda was the mid-term review of the EU budget for the period 2021 to 2027, including agreement on a €50 billion assistance package for Ukraine. We had discussed the proposed package at our meeting in December. While it had been possible to secure agreement among 26 member states, Hungary was not ready to agree at that time. Hungary has since come on board and at our meeting on 1 February, agreed to the budget package on foot of some small adjustments to the text. The package agreed provides an additional financial envelope in the budget of €64.6 billion in total through a mix of new and existing funds being reallocated. Taking account of redeployments of €10.6 billion, and the €33 billion in loans in the money for Ukraine, the net amount of new moneys being committed under the revision is €21 billion. Some €50 billion will now go to the Ukraine facility, comprising €17 billion in grants and €33 billion in loans. That places financial assistance for Ukraine over the next four years on a predictable and sustainable footing. Additional funding will also now be available for priorities that include migration, external action and the solidarity and emergency reserve that assists member states experiencing a disaster.
We also held a strategic discussion on the situation in the Middle East. I once again strongly advocated for an immediate ceasefire that would allow access for the humanitarian supplies so urgently needed in Gaza, as well as for the immediate release of all remaining hostages, which should happen without any conditions and should have happened a long time ago.
We also discussed challenges facing the agricultural sector and significant concerns raised by farmers in several member states.
The evening before the special European Council meeting, I was honoured to attend a commemoration ceremony hosted by the European Commission in honour of Jacques Delors. Later that evening, I also attended an informal gathering of EU leaders over dinner.
I am sure the Taoiseach and the other EU heads of state and government were delighted when Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán held up the €50 billion plan for Ukraine at the European Council meeting in December and made them all return for a special meeting in February. It is great that this four-year package, the so-called Ukraine facility, has finally been agreed.
As the Taoiseach stated, the meeting also discussed the terrible events taking place in Gaza. Unfortunately, yet again no conclusions were reached. Nevertheless the Taoiseach spoke on the margins of the meeting about the possibility of recognising the Palestinian state, the need to review the EU-Israel trade association agreement, given its human rights clause, the need to continue funding for United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNWRA, and as the Taoiseach has said, the need for a humanitarian ceasefire. Can the Taoiseach give us a progress report on any of those issues? Has any progress been made at European Council level? I know it is difficult to get agreement on these matters but I wonder if the Taoiseach could update the House on those four points that were reported in the media?
Long before the current escalation of violence that we have seen, the genocidal attack on Gaza by Israel and the events of 7 October, I pointed out to the Government, and to Ursula von der Leyen when she was here, something that was not lost on the people of Palestine or the Middle East, which was the shocking double standards in EU policy when we contrast Europe's attitude towards Russia's brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine and decades of illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, a 16-year siege of Gaza, which, by any definition, is a crime against humanity and a collective punishment of the people of Gaza, decades of ethnic cleansing and the failure of the European Union ever to impose any sanction whatsoever on Israel. That was the case before October last year. That double standard continues. The Government has, under pressure, frankly, now begun to express what most people in this country and in the world think, which is that Israel is a rogue state and that a state capable of a genocide should be sanctioned and certainly should not be supported or given favoured trade status by Europe.
We are pouring billions into a war in Ukraine that is going nowhere. Understandably, we sympathise with the Ukrainian people as victims of aggression. The Palestinian people would have as much of a case to ask for armed support from the European Union as the Ukrainian people but they are not asking for that. They are just asking countries to stop giving guns to the Israelis so they can kill Palestinians. They are asking other countries to stop treating Israel like a normal state and giving it favoured trade status while it illegally occupies Palestinian territory, ethnically cleanses Palestinian territory, imposes a siege on Gaza and holds tens of thousands of Palestinians as hostages. Now, indeed, Israel is, in effect, holding Irish citizens hostage. Zak Hania and at least two other Irish citizens that I know of are being held hostage by Israel. That is outrageous. Does the Taoiseach not see the double standards? Does he not see how they would enrage, and are enraging, Palestinians and people across the world? The European Union throws the kitchen sink and billions of euro at arming Ukraine to resist what is a brutal and illegal invasion but gives effective support to Israel to conduct over a much longer period the same crimes and worse? It is now in the dock for genocide. What are we going to do about these shocking double standards? Surely the Taoiseach cannot deny they are obscene and stark double standards and hypocrisy.
I recently met representatives of the Western Saharan people. I do not know if representatives of the Government met them but they were here last week. They pointed out the same double standards. Under international law, they are subject to an illegal occupation by Morocco. The European courts have found in their favour but the European Commission is appealing rulings of the European courts against Morocco because of perceived strategic EU interests in backing Morocco in occupying the Western Saharan people. Unless these double standards are challenged in a serious and sustained way, why would anybody believe in international law or the moral credentials or principles of the European Union? Are those credentials and principles being exposed as non-existent?
I thank the Deputies for their questions. I will respond first to Deputy Haughey. This Parliament has already passed a motion in favour of the recognition of Palestine as a state. The Government wants to fulfil that in a way that is meaningful. We could do it unilaterally tomorrow but it would be effectively a press release that would be dismissed by Israel and nobody would follow it. What makes more sense is to do it on a multilateral basis and we are in discussions with approximately half a dozen other countries about doing it as a group and, crucially, linking it to the Palestinian Authority, or, I hope, a reformed Palestinian Authority, taking back control of Gaza and giving it the status of state, and then its engaging with Israel on an equal basis. That is the way we want to do it.
The EU-Israel association agreement that governs relations between the EU and Israel has a democracy and human right clause. It is my opinion and that of Prime Minister Sánchez that Israel is in flagrant and open violation of that clause and is almost boasting about that, quite frankly, which I find shocking. We are pursuing this matter. The Tánaiste pursued it at a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council as recently as Monday and I will do so bilaterally and at the European Council in late March.
Deputy Boyd Barrett talked about double standards. To be frank, in foreign policy, there are double standards, triple standards and quadruple standards all the time. That does not mean it is a good thing. There is evidence of double standards in the European Union's responses in Ukraine and Palestine.
I have called that out. The Deputy also engages in double standards sometimes. I could not count the number of times the Deputy has raised Palestine as an issue during Taoiseach's questions and Leader's Questions. He has done so on so many occasions. I could count the number of times Ukraine was raised, probably on one hand or two. That is evidence of double standards. The Deputy's lack of interest in human rights in places like Cuba and Venezuela, because they are socialist, represents double standards. If he were as critical of them as he is of China, for example, he would not be guilty of double standards.
I am very critical of China.
That is the point. The Deputy is not critical of Venezuela or Cuba. There are double standards all over the place.
I am, actually.
The Deputy should do a bit of research and count the number of times he has raised Palestine as opposed to Ukraine, and the number of times he has raised human rights abuses in Cuba and Venezuela as opposed to China.
There is nobody knocking on my door.
He is pretty good at double standards.
The situation in Ukraine is different from that in Palestine. The attack on Ukraine was totally unprovoked. Ukraine is a democracy, not a dictatorship or a theocracy. It is also a European country, in our neighbourhood, and a country that had applied to join the European Union. Indeed, one of the reasons Russia attacked Ukraine was that it wanted to be part of the European Union. Therefore, it is different. The conflict has been going on for two years. There have been many more deaths in Ukraine, and many more people have been displaced, amounting to 6 million or 7 million at this stage. Fundamentally, however, the approach should be the same. When I meet representatives of Arab governments, I ask them why they have not done more for Palestine. Considering all the things European countries have done for their neighbour Ukraine – I am not referring to giving it weapons but to imposing the likes of sanctions and overflight bans and cancelling visas – Arab countries could do a lot more for their neighbour and their brethren in Palestine.