Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Lisbon Agenda always feeds into the spring meeting of the European Council. Almost the entire spring Council meeting will relate to the Lisbon strategy. Every year we draw up a report for the spring Council meeting on what we did in the preceding year across the range of areas that are set out in the strategy. We will produce a report again this year. After the reports have been discussed on a national basis, the agenda for the following year is set out. The process runs from Easter to Easter, rather than within the calendar year. That will happen again this year.

I have addressed the House previously on the European Union's approach to the energy issue. The entire autumn meeting of the European Council, which was attended by the Russian President, Mr. Putin, involved a discussion on energy. Germany has made energy the key issue of its Presidency, with the proposed European constitution. I reported to the House previously on the matter and answered questions on it. The entire autumn meeting of the Council was devoted to the matter. As energy is a national competency, each country is responsible for its own energy policies. The European Union has no problem with Ireland's energy mix. There is now greater co-operation on issues like the future supply and pricing of energy at EU level. Ireland has its own policies and competency on these issues.

Deputy Ó Caoláin asked me whether I addressed the issue of human rights in a serious manner while I was in Saudi Arabia. We always raise such issues during our overseas missions because people expect it of us, as representatives of this country. We raised them on this occasion. We do not raise such issues in a trenchant fashion by attacking the countries in question, but we outline our concerns strongly. On this occasion, I did that during my various meetings. Perhaps I did so more publicly than I have done on other occasions. During our dialogue with third countries, we always avail of the appropriate opportunities to raise our human rights concerns.

We raise human rights issues not only in political meetings, but also in detail as part of the official contacts during each visit, and we did that on this occasion. Human rights issues are also highlighted in the ongoing dialogue between the European Union and Saudi Arabia. When I raise these matters, I usually do so in the context of the EU, which most countries are used to dealing with. It is clear that Ireland ties itself into the European position.

In my televised keynote address to the King Faisal Foundation in Riyadh, which was attended by many key academics in that city, I stated:

The principle of mutual respect must underpin all aspects of relations between our two regions, Europe and the Middle East, which are inextricably linked by geography, by history and by millennia of cultural and religious interchange. Ireland is a modern and pluralist State. We believe that fundamental human rights are inalienable. At the same time, we accept that it is most effectively through dialogue and co-operation that all states can over time meet the standards to which they have committed themselves as members of the United Nations.

Human rights issues were raised during the question and answer session that followed my speech, which was widely publicised in Riyadh. Deputy Ó Caoláin will appreciate that when one deals with academics in countries like Saudi Arabia, they are quick to speak about the standards of the west — that happened on this occasion — and one ends up defending the human rights record of other EU member states, which is not always the most comfortable position to be in.

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