Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to comment in advance of the European Council meeting. I will deal, first, with the future of the European Union. I agree with what the Taoiseach said, that we should be setting out our positive agenda, not just what we are opposed to, but in truth, listening to his statement and trying to parse what the positive agenda was, he referred to the development of the Single Market, the digital Single Market in particular, and banking union. They are beneficial, but, while I accused the Taoiseach earlier of having an economic strategy something similar to that of Fianna Fáil in the 1990s, the European strategy seems to be something similar to that of the Tory Party in concentrating on the market, liberalisation and securing economic benefits. However, there was no real strong commentary on or analysis of the social agenda, the environmental agenda or even how we could progress the concept of subsidiarity or other developments in the European Union.

The Taoiseach is going to have to say more than just that we want to have a digital Single Market if he is going to stave off what I think is, as mentioned by other speakers, a slightly too-ambitious French and Commission proposal for rapid European integration. I thought President Juncker's state of the union speech was remarkable in how it pushed that agenda, including having a single European Finance Minister, a single bonds market, effectively a single budget and a real connected Europe on steroids. It was matched by what President Macron was saying. It seems that would not be in our immediate interests, but we cannot just counter it by saying we want to go back to the old idea of the market knows best. As a country we cannot just be seen as representing the large American multinationals, which is how we are seen elsewhere in Europe. Increasingly, because of what we have done in taxation and because we are seen as having given excessively generous terms to the American multinationals - the tax rate is not 12.5% but 1% or 2% - the rest of Europe states it has had enough of these companies getting away without paying a €1 trillion tax bill. We have to be careful, therefore, that this is not just seen as the country playing that game in which we want all of the benefits of the digital Single Market, without taking responsibility for other developments.

I was particularly interested in what the Taoiseach said about the French proposal for an Internet tax and the view of it as a measure to fund journalism, the media and other things. His response was that we were opposed to it. He listed countries such as Cyprus, Malta and the Czech Republic and indicated that we did not think Europe was big enough to regulate the Internet, that one would have to do it through the OECD for fear that we would give Japan or other countries an advantage. I do not agree with him because one of the successes, benefits and purposes of the European Union is that it has the scale to regulate global capitalism on its own and iron out some of the inequities within the system. We should not be afraid or just abdicate that power and say the European Union is not big enough on its own to do it and that we will have to get the OECD to agree. To my mind, in that way lies paralysis that benefits very large companies that do not want regulation, but it is just not right and does not reflect reality. The reality of what is happening in Europe is that the European Court of Justice, in the absence of political leadership or proper regulations from the Commission or the European Council, effectively regulates the digital Single Market in its judgments on privacy, data-sharing, data retention and so on. Whether the Taoiseach likes it, it is a mistake for us to want so much to be a representative for American multinational capitalism because we underplay the powers we have.

To tie it in, even in an obscure way, I will move on to my view on the Brexit talks. I am deeply worried - obviously everyone is - that on our neighbouring island, in particular, there seems to be a complete political mess. The ruling Tory Party seems to be riven down the middle. The Prime Minister does not have any authority. The British Parliament, as mentioned, has just delayed the debate on its own withdrawal Bill because it cannot get political agreement. Amendments could bring down the British Government at any time because neither side will be able to command the numbers, even with the DUP, to get the Bill through. The Irish Government took the right approach over the summer in stepping back and stating it was not going to design the Border on Ireland for Britain. We did not quite cut off diplomatic relations, but we sent a very strong signal to the British administrative system that we would not co-operate in that approach and that was the right signal to send.

I am concerned that in just standing back we risk ending up with a crash-out hard border, which is a real possibility. Some, including Britain's Minister, Mr. David Davis, recently raised the prospect of a crash-out Brexit being the end outcome. Some in the European Union may also see that as a desirable outcome to teach the British a lesson and to let them hang themselves since it is their fault. Even if two sides of the argument might want a crash-out Brexit, it would not serve our interests. It behoves the Government, therefore, to up the game diplomatically rather than just taking a step back and stating Brexit has nothing to do with it, that it is not going to do, say or act on anything and that it is up to the British Government to come forward with proposals.

On the two areas of digital and energy market reform we could look to seek engagement with the British and with our European colleagues because both areas are not typically within the same customs union and trade and WTO agreements. It will be necessary for Britain to be able to manage or develop its ongoing digital service sector. It will effectively have to accept ECJ jurisdiction because the digital rules will be set in Europe and the likes of Google and Facebook will not want a separate judicial system for the UK. The UK is not big enough, even at the size it is, and even as it is an impressive and capable digital country in a range of different ways. In the end it will have to accept ECJ regulation. Europe is so much bigger that it has that power to set digital rules. It is the same in the energy market.

We have a particular interest in these two areas - one for a security reason and the other for economic development reasons. On the security reason, we need to secure an energy agreement. Regardless of what happens in the crash-out trade arrangements or even on the cross-Border issues here on the island, we need to know we will be able to get access to gas from the UK. We need to know we will be able to share power, through the interconnectors we already have let alone new interconnection. In that regard also, the management of that system involves acceptance in the UK of the authority of the ECJ because ultimately the final agreement on all those trading arrangements has to rest with a certain court and the ECJ is the only obvious viable court. My argument is that the Government should be engaging on that digital issue in terms of regulatory matters and on the likes of the energy issue, and should use that to maintain contact with the UK Government, a government that seems to be losing its reason. It makes sense for us to be engaging in as many diplomatic ways as we can to avoid that crash-out Brexit. We should also not want to undermine the European Union position in terms of 27 countries stating they will not proceed to the trade negotiations in advance of the first three items being agreed. However, we can and should be working on other issues as part of being seen as a responsible, proper player.

I was talking to some officials on this and asking what implications it has for the North-South energy arrangements because we have a difficult situation here in terms of how we maintain an all-island energy market. Off the record the officials stated we have every prospect of reaching agreement but the one problem is we have no Assembly in the North and in the absence of the Assembly we can do nothing. I urge my colleagues in Sinn Féin who are involved in sensitive negotiations the details of which I will not go into here to consider that the absence of an Administration and an Assembly in the North is a real threat to both future island energy co-operation and having an all-island energy market which is, I would have thought, in the interests of that party. I am told by officials that it is in danger of going out the window because we do not have a Northern Administration. That needs to be resolved.

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