Ms Lynn Boylan:

I will begin by commenting on the structure of the incoming Juncker Commission and the reservations that I and some Sinn Féin MEPs have about it. I will then speak about the two committees on which I work, as well as the work of being shadow rapporteur of reports.

Regardless of individual personalities in the incoming Commission, there is a real concern about a move to put business before people. One of the main concerns is that Mr. Juncker has moved responsibility for health technologies and medicinal products from the health unit to the area of the Internal Market and competitiveness. This is being condemned by all health non-governmental and patient organisations, and it is a worrying trend that we are putting competitiveness in the area of health outcomes before dealing with a citizen's right to health care. We are also concerned that there is no Commissioner with responsibility for sustainability, and we wrote to Mr. Juncker to demand that sustainability be made a cornerstone within his Commission, with Commissioner Vella to be assigned some sort of role dealing with sustainable development.

With regard to personalities, there are a number of Commissioner-designates about which we would have real concerns. Our concerns about Mr. Hogan are public knowledge but our committee also has reservations about Mr. Miguel Cañete, the Spanish designate. If he is successful, he will be the Commissioner responsible for energy and the environment, despite him having a 3% share in oil companies. We consider that to be a complete conflict of interest and see him as the wrong man to be representing the environment and climate change efforts. We will oppose Mr. Cañete's approval and we hope the Spanish Government will return with an alternative nominee. We also have some reservations about Mr. Jonathan Hill's links to banking and lobbying. Across Europe, Irish people and European citizens feel disconnected from the European institutions and their faith in them has dropped to an all-time low. The structure of the Juncker Commission and issues around transparency are not helping.

At a hearing recently involving the environmental committee, I challenged a Commissioner-designate, Mr. Vytenis Andriukaitis, on conflicts of interest regarding the European Food and Standards Authority.

Some 41% of people questioned across Europe have no faith in the scientists who sit on the board because of their interests in industry. We were not satisfied with the answer to it and were going to follow up by writing to the Commissioner and asking for some concrete actions he could take to deal with the transparency around EFSA. I am a full member of the Committee on the Environmental, Public Health and Food Safety, and this is how I got the opportunity to question the Commissioner designate for public health on Tuesday. I am also a substitute member of the employment and social affairs committee.

I am shadow rapporteur on the very controversial GMO report on ensuring member states have the ability to restrict GMOs on their territories. It has caused controversy and failed to reach agreement at European Council level. As shadow rapporteur and representing the GUE-NGL group, I want to ensure member states are protected with very robust laws and enabled to stop GMOs being grown on their territories. We have concerns around the Council and Commission’s position on it because one of the issues is that member states and companies are put on equal footing. Therefore a member state must request that a company does not grow GMOs on its territory. This is wrong. A democratically elected government cannot be on a level pegging with the likes of Monsanto and we object to it.

We are also concerned about the list of reasons a member state can use for opposing GMOs. The reasons are too vague and both the Commission and Council’s positions have no reference to cross-contamination or liability, which would be of particular concern for the island of Ireland. I am not sure what our Government’s position is because it is a little vague. However, the British Conservative Government is very much in favour of GMOs and has been very open about the fact that it wants GMOs to proceed. Where does that leave Northern Ireland? How can we object to it and how can farmers in the Border region stop cross-contamination of their crops? It has many implications, particularly for organic farmers retaining their organic status. We also have concerns about the legal basis of this in that the Council and Commission propose that the legal basis for the regulations will be internal market, not environment. Again, we have concerns because it puts competitiveness and internal market before environmental law.

The other report I am working on as shadow rapporteur is the one on novel foods. It also failed to reach agreement under the previous legislature, probably because of the inclusion of food from cloned animals. This has been removed from it and the novel foods report will take on board only foods from third countries, for example foods which would have been consumed in Latin America and which are coming into the European market after 1997. There are safety aspects to these foods. The novel foods report also includes nanotechnology. Many people are unaware of nanotechnology in food and it is very difficult to explain. It is about particles at a nano level that are being introduced into food. Our concern is that there is no satisfactory, scientific method for testing the safety of these products. The EU seems to be putting the cart before the horse by providing a mechanism to regulate these products to come on the market for European citizens to eat before we have a standardised procedure to assess whether the products are safe for human consumption.

The other report for which I will be rapporteur is a non-legislative report on the right to water. Members might be familiar with it as the citizens’ initiative was hailed during the Lisbon treaty as a great step in democratising the EU and bringing it back to the citizen level. We always had reservations about it because the wording in the Lisbon treaty was that the Commission would “note” any citizens’ initiative. The first initiative brought before the Commission was the right to water, which was mostly organised by the trade union movement. More than 2 million European citizens have signed up to the initiative, which asks that it be put on a legal basis that it is a human right to have access to clean drinking water. In May, the European Commission rejected the initiative on the grounds that it would tie the hands of the future legislator. We find this very disappointing. The European Parliament has always backed the initiative to make the right to water a fundamental human right. A report will go through this legislature which will, hopefully, reiterate the support of the European Parliament for citizens’ right to access to free water. I will be the rapporteur on it and the process should begin in December, all going well.

In September, a delegation from the GUE-NGL group visited Palestine on foot of the Israeli Government’s onslaught into Gaza in its operation protective edge. Given the level of EU funding that goes into the region, we felt justified in sending a delegation on a fact-finding mission to assess how much aid would be required from the EU to support the people of Palestine. Unfortunately, the Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs rejected our request to enter Gaza. We continued with the delegation and went through the United Nations to assess the level of damage. The UN was very disappointed at the Israeli Government’s refusal to let us enter Gaza, and met us in Jerusalem. The UN has sent a clear message that it wants MEPs and politicians from member states to go to Gaza and see for themselves the damage that has been done and the war crimes that have been committed in the area. On the fact-finding mission we met members of the Knesset and the Palestinian Authority. We also met representatives of Israeli and Palestinian NGOs and victims of operation protective edge, and their message is that the world needs to stand up and take action against Israel on what it has done in Gaza.

We intend to pursue it in the European Parliament. We believe the EU could do much more. The laws are there, and must be enforced. There should be an embargo on products from Israel and the EU should demand compensation from the Israeli Government because taxpayers’ money, including Irish taxpayers’ money, has gone into providing infrastructure in Gaza which has been repeatedly destroyed on a two-yearly basis. During the most recent onslaught, the water and electrical infrastructure was completely destroyed so that Israel, once again, controls the water and electricity going into Gaza. Some 400,000 people have no access to clean water as a result of the actions of the Israeli Government. We will continue to ask the European Parliament to stand up and take action against Israel for its infringements of human rights.