Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Madam Chair, Ms Klympush-Tsintsadze. I reiterate what everyone else has said about the solidarity there needs to be with Ukraine, which is dealing with an absolutely abominable invasion by Russia, something none of us expected to happen. We are in a very different place now from where we were a few months ago. This being the EU affairs committee, Ms Klympush-Tsintsadze has already dealt with the piece of work on EU candidacy and reorientation of Ukraine's set-up, that is, the economy combined with reforms. That will be very difficult to follow through on in the middle of a war. Obviously, we are in complete support of EU candidacy for Ukraine. When we deal with a necessary Marshall plan of rebuilding, as is hoped, at the end of the conflict, we will also need to ensure the correct resources and proper facilitation. Sometimes I think there has been a failure on the part of the European Union to provide a proper roadmap for accession. That is a piece we need to work on. We have had unhelpful commentary recently, particularly from France, that does not help the situation.

Ms Klympush-Tsintsadze dealt with the wider issue of food security. I would ask questions about Ukraine's energy security and the supply chains. I would also ask about the issue of sanctions. We have seen the difficulty in getting the last and the next round of sanctions into play. It is a question of what Ukraine wants to see from those sanctions. Ms Klympush-Tsintsadze has dealt with some of that, including in respect of SWIFT, and we can all make guesses about fuel, but what exactly needs to happen? As much as everyone prefers that there is multilateralism and agreement at European level, that might not always be necessary. The European Union has carried out a number of co-operative actions recently, even through the pandemic, on an opt-in basis. In an awful lot of cases people opted in, so we might be looking at that into the future. Again, it is a matter of Ukraine's view on that, particularly the sanctions.

Mr. Shchedrin has responsibility for trade, does he not?