Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

After years of unprecedented financial and economic crises, the European Union is today dealing with the largest humanitarian crisis it has ever faced. However, its leaders continue to fail the basic test of responding with urgency, imagination and generosity. This summit slightly nudged along a response but achieved little else. With winter closing in and people about to be caught in desperate circumstances as border after border is being closed to them, what was needed was an agreement to do whatever it takes to help them. This did not happen and therefore the summit has to be seen as a failure. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people are risking everything to seek shelter in Europe shows that it is still seen as a place of hope and safety for many.

While the basic values of Europe are under attack in many places, they remain an inspiration for others. The last thing we can do is allow the values of extremists to triumph. We cannot allow them to make us fail in our obligation to do all that we can.

The Council President, Mr. Donald Tusk, has done good work in identifying the different elements which need to be addressed to provide a comprehensive response to the crisis. Unfortunately, other leaders have been willing to identify the problems but unwilling to commit to the solutions. There is a refugee crisis because millions of people are fleeing vicious conflicts. They do not want to be refugees but want to live in their own homes. The worst impact has come from the war in Syria, which was started by President Assad through his determination to hold power at all costs. The early resistance to him was overwhelmingly from moderate communities, which have borne the brunt of his savage repression. They offered talks, built coalitions of moderate forces and tried to find an end to the misery faced by the Syrian people. In response, they experienced some of the most brutal actions ever undertaken by a state against its citizens. The use of chemical weapons and the systematic clearing of cities caused millions to flee to neighbouring countries.

The Assad regime has been a client state of, first, the Soviet Union and now Russia for nearly half a century. The efforts of some, both here and elsewhere, to claim the United States and Europe are responsible for the war are ridiculous and show again their double standards. The emergence of the ISIS group has made the position worse. It represents no one but the most fanatical religious hard-liners who are seeking to ethnically cleanse the entire region. The systematic expulsion and murder of Christian communities and other religious minorities and the brutality shown towards non-Sunni Muslims are something most of us thought belonged to a different era.

It says something very significant about both Assad and his Russian military backers that the majority of their effort is going into attacking the moderate opposition, rather than ISIS. The Fianna Fáil Party strongly agrees with the basic position of the European Union that there can be no long-term peace with Assad in place. There is too much blood on his hands and he has rejected too many opportunities to end the conflict for him to be a credible leader of a people which has never fully supported him. No one has yet come up with a credible route forward, especially given Russia's ongoing veto threat against any United Nations resolution which could threaten Assad's position. The first priority must be to continue the search for a way through this, achieve an agreed international position for a transition in Syria and create a united front against the barbarism of ISIS. However, the most immediate concern must be the millions of people in camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Every person in these camps who is capable of leaving is rightly considering doing so. They offer shelter but little else. Even basic employment and education services are not available and medical facilities cover little more than the bare minimum.

I welcome the call by the Council on member states to give more as it also recognises the problem. The appalling budget deal means the European Union simply does not have the resources to step change its response. It is, therefore, up to member states to do so. We need an urgent commitment by states to give whatever it takes to bring facilities in the refugee camps up to basic standards and to do so before the full force of winter sets in. The Government has spent the past week talking about how we have the opportunity to be generous. Let us show generosity by taking the lead and immediately announcing a major increase in support for the Syrian refugee camps.

For those who have decided to seek refuge in Europe, the immediate danger is now acute. As we could all see from television reports yesterday, the weather is causing an acute crisis on the European Union's south-eastern borders. There is no alternative to the core principle of solidarity and sharing responsibility between members. Ireland must continue to reject the base populism of extremists and accept its shared role in helping the people concerned. If there is no material improvement in the position in the next fortnight, Ireland should seek to have an emergency summit called. There is no more time to waste.

The summit's conclusions are vague on the deal being discussed with Turkey on seeking to prevent people from leaving camps in Turkey to travel to Europe. As I stated, making conditions in the refugee camps bearable is an essential first step. However, the idea that membership of the European Union, or at least access to core policies, should be bartered away in an emergency is not acceptable. If leaders go too far, there will be an inevitable public backlash.

Just as important is the issue of whether the European Union is agreeing to turn a blind eye to all actions by the Turkish Government in return for help. As I stated previously, the position in Turkey is of great concern. A drift away from essential democratic norms is evident in a number of important areas. These include the pressure on independent media and a growing indifference to minority rights. The Turkish Government appears to have been eager to escalate the conflict with the PKK and has pushed aside earlier, highly encouraging progress towards peaceful reconciliation. Our sympathies should go out to all those affected by the bombing in Ankara, which was directed against a democratic peaceful movement dedicated to finding a place for the Kurdish people in Turkey. Whatever is ultimately proposed as an agreement with Turkey, it must be based on humanitarian and democratic principles.

A clear failure of the summit was its backing away from an essential component of the much needed banking union. The lack of a shared regulation and resourcing of banks in the eurozone has been identified as one of the causes of the financial crisis which ultimately caused so much economic damage. The creation of a banking union has been agreed as an absolute requirement of learning the lessons of the past and returning the eurozone to secure long-term growth. Unfortunately, the Taoiseach and his colleagues have tried to muddle through with a policy which leaves in place key weaknesses. To maintain confidence in the banking sector and its ability to lend to businesses and the community, a credible deposit guarantee mechanism is required. In the context of the eurozone, the experiences of Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus have shown that the required confidence will only be established if guarantees extend beyond national economies. This is one of the only ways of breaking the implied link between financial and sovereign debt. The draft conclusions for last week's summit included a strong statement about a common deposit guarantee system. In the face of inflexible resistance from Germany, however, this was removed and replaced with a banal statement about something being done at some point in future. This is foolish in the extreme and undermines the very idea of a banking union.

As a result of German resistance, we have a regulatory framework which does not extend to many systematically important banking sectors. We have a recapitalisation fund which covers a tiny fraction of potential need and we now have a deposit insurance system which is basically the current failed model in new clothes. We are nearing the end of the entire process of reform of economic and monetary union and the outcome is not encouraging. There is no provision for fiscal transfers between states at times of need, no credible banking union and only a limited lender of last resort. Not one of the identified weaknesses which led to the crisis has been addressed. Instead, we have more talk about fiscal control as if this was the answer to everything. Unfortunately, Government policy has been solely driven by short-term domestic politics. The Government has not set out a policy on the necessary reforms, has refused to ask for relief for debts incurred by Ireland as a result of what are now accepted to have been failures of European policies and has instead encouraged the view that Ireland was to blame for everything.

Statements on European Council meetings will probably not be held more than once or twice before the next general election. It would be worthwhile for the Taoiseach to take time to examine the overblown rhetoric he used in previous contributions. He should look at how often he spoke of everything being fine and described issues that are still in crisis as having been sorted. He will see a Government that ignores what it said in its first years. Let us not forget the billions of euro in retrospective recapitalisation the Taoiseach told us he would apply for before quietly abandoning that position without explanation. Let us not forget his claim that Europe had been reformed and all was fine. Let us not forget that instead of going to Europe with a clear agenda, time after time his only approach has been to wait to see what was agreed and then claim it as a great victory.

That is how he returned from one summit: claiming to have moved mountains to win a major interest rate reduction for Ireland when, in truth, he had asked for one quarter of what Greece secured and which was automatically extended to Ireland without discussion. Time and again, other countries negotiated while the Taoiseach sat back with a public relations team ready to spin.

The Taoiseach's relationship with the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, has delivered nothing discernible for Ireland. Their joint approach to Northern Ireland has been hands-off and, therefore, very damaging. On Europe, it has meant meetings which were long on rhetoric and devoid of detail. Five years after Mr. Cameron's announcement that he wanted an in-or-out referendum and two years after the renegotiation of British membership of the European Union was launched, we still have not heard from the British what they actually want. We have not heard from our Government what we are willing to support. It appears that the Prime Minister was finally forced last week to agree to say what he is looking for. The first demand is for an opt-out from the concept of ever-closer union. This is part of the treaties which has no specific legal effect and is of no concern. The second demand is for an explicit statement that the union is a multi-currency union. This is intended to separate the workings of the Union from those of the eurozone. In practice, this could be very damaging. The completion of a real fiscal and banking union requires a central entity to develop, enforce and administer policies. This can only credibly be the institutions of the European Union. What we urgently need in this regard is a proposal for the long-term governance of the eurozone, without which the British idea is risky at best. The third demand is for a means to re-nationalise areas that have been subject to joint decisions within the Union. If this is a Trojan horse for the Tory agenda of removing basic worker protections and other regulations implementing equality and safety policies, we should not accept it. Finally, there is a general demand to protect the City of London and give it guaranteed access to all eurozone opportunities. This is basically Britain saying that eurozone countries must bear all constraints of membership but share all the opportunities. This is of particular concern for Ireland, as the return of certain euro markets to the eurozone is standard policy and one from which we might significantly benefit.

Taken together, the list is a vague one that is more about English nationalist concerns than improving the European Union for other member states or even other parts of the United Kingdom. Britain's remaining in the European Union is important for Ireland, but not at any price. We need to know exactly what it is looking for and we need a debate on how far it is in our national interest and the interest of the European Union as a whole to make concessions.

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