Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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First, on the populations covered, there are approximately 250 million people in Indonesia, 50 million in South Africa and 50 million in South Korea. The three agreements between them involve 350 million people and are quite significant.

In reply to Deputy Smith, the agreements provide for co-operation in the area of climate change. It is already built into them.

In response to Deputies Mitchell and Eric Byrne, the ratification of all member states is required for the agreements to come into force. One should bear in mind that these are EU agreements with the countries concerned. Of course, Ireland has separate bilateral relations and there is a trade relationship. These agreements provide a framework for the trade and investment relationship and then a wider framework including the essential elements which deal with such matters as human rights.

The most significant of those essential elements is what they do positively because they provide for a discussion and dialogue between the European Union and countries concerned, for example, on human rights issues. Of course, it is true that we all are free at any time to raise such issues bilaterally with countries and the European Union is free to do so, but doing it in a structured way which involves the whole trade relationship adds much greater clout to the discussion.

The European Union requires the inclusion of political clauses in agreements with third countries as a way of ensuring that the values and political principles of the European Union and its member states are upheld. The agreements with Korea and Indonesia contain two political clauses - one on human rights, democracy and the rule of law committing all parties to the implementation of their human rights responsibilities and the other on disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction requiring the parties to co-operate and contribute to countering the proliferation of such weapons. The original agreement with South Africa contained a human rights clause while the revised agreement we are discussing today has added disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The human rights clause is an essential element of the agreement. That means that the concessions which are contained in the agreement may be unilaterally suspended in the event of violation by any of the signatory countries.

On the monitoring of the human rights situation in the countries concerned, one of the key ways that the EU monitors the human rights situations in countries is through its delegations on the ground which work in close collaboration with the bilateral member state missions. The European Union maintains an open and frank dialogue on human rights with the representatives of countries with which it concludes co-operation agreements. In the case of Indonesia and South Africa, human rights are the subject of a dedicated dialogue with the respective Governments. These dialogues are forward looking and constructive and focus on concrete co-operation in the protection and promotion of human rights in the countries in question. At a multilateral level, the European Union actively engages with partner countries, including at the UN Human Rights Council where, of course, all countries are subject to universal periodic review.