Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Maybe I will answer Senator Chambers's question first if she has to run back to the Seanad. She asked about the timeline for Ukraine membership. I hope it can be done within a decade. Given the scale of rebuilding and the challenges in terms of the benchmarks that need to be met to become a member of the European Union, that can be a very exciting ten years of investment, growth, reform and change within Ukraine. The European Union will be there every step of the way to support them in that and that is the way it should be. We need to be careful, however, that we cannot promise to deliver this within a couple of years. The important thing here is that we set out a pathway that is achievable and then try to accelerate it, if we can, and do it in a shorter timeframe. What we do not want to do is disappoint people who are working incredibly hard and currently giving their lives for this aim and dream by overpromising and under-delivering, which I think would be wrong. We should set a ten-year horizon then see if we can do it faster. That is what I think we should try to do.

In terms of the need to be cautious not to humiliate Russia, we need to be careful here. Our signals need to be very clear and very blunt in response to what we regard as a complete breach of international law and a breach of the UN Charter. I think most people would accept that we are seeing war crimes taking place almost on a daily basis. When one spends a bit of time in countries that know Russia best, and what I mean by that is countries that border Russia or are very close to it, whether it is Finland, the Baltic countries or Poland, they will say that often concessions or diplomacy or softer language is seen as weakness. Now is a time for clarity in relation to consequences for the actions that are currently taking place.

I take the Senator's point, though. There is a need, of course, to maintain in my view diplomatic communication with Russia, which is why I have not taken the decision to close the Russian Embassy despite the fact that many people called for that at the start of this conflict over and over again, including some form my own party. I think that would not have been the right decision. We expelled four people working with the Russian Embassy here. We felt it was appropriate to do that. We felt they did not have a basis to be here in terms of being diplomats. There was a consequence for that because two of our diplomats were sent home from Moscow with no justification, in my view, because they were people very much involved in diplomacy.

Even when we fundamentally disagree with a country, it is important to keep a line of communications open to be able to express that view and to hear. Even if we do not believe we are being told the truth, sometimes it is important to have that line of communication open.

I take the point about the humiliation issue, but we need to build a relationship in the future with a new generation of Russians. Russia is too big a country to isolate forever. While the Russians are embarking on this level of aggression, brutality and illegality with very high consequences, our messages need to be very clear and blunt. This is wrong and unacceptable. Russia is isolating itself because of what it is doing. It is also causing its own people considerable hardship because these sanctions would not exist if it were not for Russian actions. While this war continues, those messages need to be firm and clear. Any ambiguity on that will be seen as weakness from the other side.

Deputy Haughey asked if sanctions are working. There is solid evidence that the military industry in Russia is having difficulty in maintaining production because of targeted sanctions. That should potentially begin to have an effect in the months ahead if this war continues. The impact on the economy is also beginning to be felt. Yesterday, the Russian Parliament passed measures to compel businesses to provide goods to the military and force employees to work overtime. That indicates some of the pressure points. The Russian economy will shrink by between 3% and 4% this year according to some estimates. The J.P. Morgan estimate is for 3.5% shrinkage this year. Are these sanctions having an effect? Ultimately, the test of the sanctions will be whether they contribute to shortening this conflict and bringing it to an end. That has not happened yet. Is Russia beginning to feel the impact of these sanctions in its economy and its ability to be able to continue to follow and supply this enormous war effort? I believe they are starting to have an impact. Ultimately, the power of sanctions is primarily the signal they send that if the Russians continue along this road, things will get worse, it will become more costly and therefore they look to alternatives - in other words to stop the aggression. That is the role of the sanctions and only time will tell whether they have actually worked.

The other question we need to ask here is: what would be happening if there were no sanctions? What signal would that send? It would be a green light to continue. The European Union is not a military union, it is an economic and political union. It is using the ammunition it has, which is economic sanctions, to the greatest extent it can. It is right to do it and it should be going further. Whether we can get agreement on that remains to be seen.

I know a number of committee members visited Georgia recently. I know Georgia is frustrated that it is not in the same category as Ukraine and Moldova. The decisions made by the last European Council should be seen as the opening of a door to accession and candidate status for Georgia. It now has considerably more clarity about what it needs to do to get that candidate status and that can be delivered. Certainly from an Irish perspective, we hope it will be able to make that journey and that it has a clear target that it needs to achieve to get there.

Regarding Moldova and Ukraine, candidate status just means the journey now starts as a formal candidate, but there is still a long way to go. I hope to be in Moldova the week after next. We are planning to visit Moldova with several other ministers to discuss any further assistance we can give to relieve the pressures it is currently facing.

We need to be open to on the issue of unanimity versus qualified majority voting, QMV, for a number of decisions but we also need to be somewhat cautious. With certain decisions that the European Union makes, we simply cannot ignore members even if only one of two of them are objecting. On most big decisions the European Union really operates on the basis of consensus, solidarity, compromise and accommodating different perspectives. If increasingly more decisions are taken on the basis of QMV, the concerns, particularly of smaller countries, can potentially be brushed aside in a way that could create resentment and build anti-EU sentiment if we are not careful. We are open to that discussion but we are also somewhat cautious that on some core issues, particularly relating to security and defence and on issues such as enlargement, we need to find consensus to move forward. A good example of that at the moment is an EU state which is preventing North Macedonia's accession moving ahead. We need to find a solution to that issue. We cannot just pretend it does not exist and vote past it.

As the European Union gets bigger, maintaining unanimity on everything will become more difficult. On certain issues we should look to make decisions by QMV. However, there are some fundamental issues. I think security and defence issues and enlargement issues require unanimity. I am open to persuasion on that, but certainly that is my view for now.

I think there is merit in the French idea of a European political area, but it should not be seen as an alternative to full membership in terms of the accession aspirations of countries like Moldova, Ukraine, the western Balkan countries and so on. The European Union needs to offer full membership to countries willing to make the changes and sacrifices to meet the standards of entry. Enlargement really is what the European Union is all about - the spreading of a peace project to provide stability and opportunity for countries. That is what membership has done for us over the past 50 years. It has been an incredibly positive influence on Irish society and our quality of life. It has improved environmental standards and working standards. It has brought gender equality and so many other things as well as, of course, economic opportunities.

It can also be the same for other countries that join. For countries on the accession path and for countries which for whatever reason may not want full membership, the French are proposing to have a network of countries that have a relationship based on a European political area. That is worth a significant discussion and it will get one in the autumn. It should not be sold as an alternative to enlargement of the European Union. To be fair, I do not think the French are proposing it as that. Let us have that discussion and see where it goes.