Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the committee for the invitation to meet with it this morning. It is a pleasure to meet with members of the current committee for the first time.

My Department has provided an information note on the issues that the Foreign Affairs Council has considered in the 13 months since I last met with the previous committee. In the future, I would hope to meet with the committee at least every six months, or more if it so desires.

Given the large number of items on the Council agenda, I will address the major themes in my opening remarks. I am happy to answer questions on any other foreign policy issues during the meeting.

I would also like to say at the outset how sad I was to learn of the death this week of Saeb Erekat, Secretary General of the PLO and chief Palestinian negotiator. I met with Saeb on numerous occasions, in Palestine and in Dublin. He devoted over 30 years of his life to the cause of peace between Palestine and Israel. My sincere condolences go to his family and the Palestinian people. The work that he was involved in for over 30 years will undoubtedly continue. I spoke to him by phone in recent weeks before he was diagnosed with Covid. He was as energetic, proactive and positive in trying to find ways of moving a peace process forward as ever. He will be missed. Many colleagues have made statements on this matter.

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has left no corner of the globe untouched and the Council has addressed it frequently. In the early months of the pandemic, we focused on co-ordinating consular assistance to EU citizens. My Department assisted over 8,000 Irish citizens to return home safely from 126 countries.

The Council also discussed how the EU could step up support for vulnerable countries. A co-ordinated Team Europe response package has provided over €35 billion to date. Ireland has allocated over €140 million to the global Covid-19 response in 2020 to date.

The wider Middle East region is an area of particular focus for the Council. The Middle East peace process was the focus of a number of discussions in 2020. Ireland played a leading role throughout the spring and summer in ensuring that the Council made clear that any annexation of territory by Israel in the West Bank would be unacceptable and a clear violation of international law. We also emphasised the EU’s continued commitment to a two-state solution based on internationally agreed parameters.

The Council had a very good meeting with the new Israeli Foreign Minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, in August and will meet with the Palestinian Foreign Minister, Dr. Riad Malki, later this month. While Prime Minister Netanyahu has announced that plans for annexation have been suspended in the context of the normalisation agreements with the UAE and Bahrain, I remain very concerned about Israel’s actions in the occupied Palestinian territory. The expansion of settlements and demolitions, even as recently as the last week, and seizures of Palestinian property have accelerated in 2020, despite Israel’s commitments not to target homes during the Covid-19 pandemic. I have been absolutely clear in my condemnation of these actions.

Lebanon is also facing complex challenges. The situation there was increasingly fragile even before the August explosion. My Department provided significant supplies of medical equipment immediately after the blast, with the support of the HSE and the Defence Forces, as well as disbursing emergency funding through Trócaire. The EU has been clear that the political leadership in Lebanon needs to urgently form a government which can enact real reform.

I am often asked about the connection between defence and foreign affairs. This committee probably understands it well but the response to the explosion in Beirut was a very good example of the connection between the two. I instantly got briefings through our contacts in UNIFIL on what was happening on the ground, what was needed and the security situation. That allowed us to make foreign policy decisions on co-ordinating assistance and using defence infrastructure to get there quickly. Ms Hyland was responsible for co-ordinating for the Department of Foreign Affairs, along with her counterpart in the Department of Defence, a political and practical response to what was needed on the ground using Defence Forces infrastructure and intelligence. It was a really good example of the two Departments on the same policy platform working in tandem with each other very effectively.

The Council also regularly discussed Syria, responding to a succession of crises, including the intensification of conflict around Idlib in the spring. EU member states halted arms exports to Turkey late last year in response to its unilateral military action in northern Syria. We have consistently called for de-escalation, the protection of civilians and the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid, which is a big challenge. We have also urged Syrian authorities to engage in a more serious way in UN-led efforts to find a political solution.

On Libya,there are now some grounds for optimism, I am glad to say. We saw a permanent ceasefire agreement signed last month and political negotiations are now well under way. The EU has effectively used the tool of sanctions to support this progress. We have rewarded constructive engagement by easing sanctions against certain individuals but have expedited sanctions against those who defy the UN arms embargo. Ireland supported the launch in March of Operation Irini, which is tasked with implementing the UN arms embargo. Again, that was a political foreign policy decision but from a defence perspective, some of our defence personnel are based at Operation Irini headquarters, assisting with that operation and making an Irish contribution to it.

More broadly in the eastern Mediterranean,Turkish provocations have continued, with Turkey conducting seismic surveys in Greek and Cypriot waters. This is causing enormous tension within the EU and further afield. Turkey must contribute to stability in the region, not engage in aggressive unilateral actions. We hope that these issues can be resolved through dialogue. If, however, Turkey continues to raise tensions, consideration of further restrictive measures will be on the table at future Foreign Affairs Council meetings.

The last year has seen momentous events in the EU’s eastern neighbourhood. The response of the Belarusian authorities towards peaceful protesters in recent months has been appalling and shocking. Two rounds of sanctions against influential figures in Belarus have been adopted by the EU, including targeted sanctions on Mr. Alexander Lukashenko. This has sent a firm message to Minsk. Ireland will continue to call for human rights and media freedoms to be respected and for violence against peaceful protestors to stop. It goes without saying that Ireland does not recognise the legitimacy of the last presidential election in Belarus.

In October, Ministers considered the current state of play in the EU’s relationship with Russia which is very complex. Meaningful engagement by Russia in the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine remains a key condition for any improvement in EU-Russia relations. The Council also condemned the shocking use of chemical weapons in the attempted assassination of Mr. Alexei Navalny and agreed on the implementation of sanctions against a number of individuals who are believed to have been influential or responsible. I also note the agreement for the cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh in recent days, which is very welcome. All sides will now need to engage in constructive dialogue to ensure that a lasting resolution can be found. The tensions and military activity involving Armenia and Azerbaijan were very worrying and we must try to ensure that the ceasefire holds. Otherwise, we could see a war being waged right on the edge of Europe.

The Council held a strategic discussion on the EU’s relationship with China in May. We reviewed the commitments and deliverables of the 2019 EU-China summit and prepared for the September 2020 leaders’ meeting. Progress has been made but much remains to be done, particularly on the comprehensive agreement on investment, sustainable development and industrial subsidies, as well as market access in the agri-food trade, financial services and digital sectors. We need to engage positively with China in a number of areas, including on climate change and World Trade Organization reform, but we also need to tackle the unbalanced trade relationship and address human rights issues. I remain deeply concerned about credible reports of arbitrary detention, widespread surveillance, forced labour, and forced sterilisations and birth control in Xinjiang. We have raised these concerns on a number of occasions and will continue to do so.

We have also expressed our clear concern about the adoption of a national security law in Hong Kong. That law risks undermining Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy under the one country, two systems principle which we support. The Council adopted conclusions on Hong Kong in July and set out a co-ordinated response, including on the issue of extradition agreements with Hong Kong. On 13 October, the Government suspended Ireland’s extradition agreement with Hong Kong, clearly signalling the depth of our concern. We co-ordinated closely with Germany, Finland and the Netherlands, which have taken the same action.

I will say a few words about Ireland’s upcoming term on the UN Security Council which is a hugely important opportunity for this country over the next two years. We take up our seat on the council in just over six weeks. The Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. We ran for election because we believe we can make a real contribution to that work. Three principles will underpin our approach, namely, building peace, strengthening conflict prevention, and ensuring accountability. All three are areas in which Ireland has real credibility. As the Chairman knows, having previously served as Minister for Foreign Affairs, these principles are at the heart of Irish foreign policy and have been thus for consecutive governments for many years.

For Ireland, a key aspect of building peace is peacekeeping. We will seek to improve peacekeeping mandates to make them fit for purpose and to strengthen the link between peacekeeping and peacebuilding. We want to emphasise the importance of an inclusive approach, ensuring the involvement of women, young people and civil society. On strengthening conflict prevention, we will address the underlying factors that contribute to conflict, notably human rights violations and climate change. We want to strengthen the protection of civilians, including from conflict-related hunger. To ensure accountability, we will seek to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law, and stand firmly in support of the International Criminal Court and the principles of the Rome Statute. That is not always easy to do because there are many very powerful actors globally who do not co-operate with the International Criminal Court, some of whom are close friends of Ireland. Nonetheless, it is important that Ireland stands up for that institution for all the right reasons, and we will do so. We will also engage actively on country-specific issues. We are identifying the specific areas on which we believe we can have most impact, including on the women peace and security agenda, on climate and security, in relation to Iran and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JPCOA, on sanctions policy and practice, and on humanitarian access in Syria which I mentioned earlier. The last of these is of particular interest to my Department and to me.

We have good relationships with the Security Council’s permanent and elected members. We do not agree on everything and we have no illusions about the challenges ahead. I am consulting a wide range of my counterparts and we are doing the same at senior official level. We will also draw from the extensive expertise available within Irish civil society and academia. We have recently established a stakeholder forum, in partnership with the Institute of International and European Affairs, IIEA, to support us in planning for our Security Council term. I look forward to keeping the Oireachtas informed of our work on the council. My Department will provide regular updates to this committee and my officials will always be available to provide oral or written briefings.

Obviously, it is a matter for the committee but, if it wanted to, it might be useful when we have a formal decision on Ireland's responsibilities in chairing committees and holding the pen, as it is called, on certain policy areas and in certain initiatives, which we will certainly know before the end of the year, to have some intense focus in those committees on some of those agendas and the issues around them, on which Ireland can be influential as a source of change and progression. I will not confirm anything today but I understand that Ireland will have some pretty weighty briefs on which we will be expected to either co-ordinate or offer leadership. This committee will, I hope, find it very interesting in that context from the defence perspective with peacekeeping and preventing conflict, and from the foreign policy perspective in the other issues.

I thank the committee members for their engagement. As ever, I look forward to their comments and questions.