Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I understand all of that. We have had this debate around quite a number of countries. The EU and the developed world often encourage countries that are looking towards democratisation but have harsh regimes. The EU often encourages them, or bribes them, whichever way one wants to see it. If they tackle a list of human rights abuses and have more transparent elections, we offer to trade with them, endorse them and enter a trade agreement. This falls under that category. That is not a bad thing if one gets product.

I have not been to Kazakhstan but looking from the outside, the problem is that we can only depend on those we trust, whom we have heard in this committee, and they have given various examples of regimes, with which we have had trade agreements, flouting the human rights conditions set by the EU once the agreement is signed. One question which the Minister of State may not be able to answer is whether any EU trade agreement has been suspended because of human rights abuses. In every single one of the early years of this century, we argued in committees pertaining to foreign affairs or the EU for suspending Israel from the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership on the very same principles outlined here, seeking to tie trade to improvement in human rights. That never seems to happen despite very blatant human rights abuses. I am afraid that if we sign up to the likes of what is before us today, the same will happen. I am firmly of the belief that sometimes if the carrot of an EU trade agreement is dangled in front of some countries, they will keep moving towards the goal, but once we sign up, they ignore it. That is my belief.