Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their questions. Regarding President-elect von der Leyen, she was nominated unanimously by the European Council, albeit with one abstention by her own country of Germany. She has now secured the majority support of the European Parliament, and only did so with very strong support from the EPP, to which my party is affiliated, the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, to which the Labour Party is affiliated, and Renew Europe, to which Fianna Fáil is affiliated. I particularly want to thank the social democrats and the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil and Renew Europe for helping to ensure that President-elect von der Leyen will, indeed, be President von der Leyen.

When it comes to individual Commissioners and their portfolios, that is actually not a matter for the European Council of prime ministers and presidents. It is a decision that the President-elect will make herself. However, each individual Commissioner will be subject to parliamentary ratification in the European Parliament, and I have no doubt that many MEPs will want to scrutinise their appointments as individuals but also their portfolios, what exactly their roles will be and what the various titles mean.

Regarding Mercosur, political agreement has been reached between the EU and the Mercosur countries after about 20 years of negotiations. However, it is only a political agreement and it will be at least two years before there is a legal text in front of us. Once there is a legal text, we are going to have to consider it very carefully to see how ratification will proceed. The Government has committed to carrying out an independent, comprehensive economic assessment and, indeed, an environmental assessment to assess the overall implications for Ireland. As I have indicated before, I would not support a free trade agreement that is not in the interests of the Irish economy and Irish jobs as a whole. We have both defensive and offensive interests, as is the case in all trade negotiations. We know that the beef sector could be very exposed. The agreement provides for an additional 99,000 tonnes of tariff-rate quota phased in over five years, which is clearly more than we would have wanted, but it is important to say that this is having no impact on beef prices at the moment, as it does not kick in for many years, if it ever does. Currently, 270,000 tonnes are already imported into the EU from Mercosur countries, so it would mean a 7.5% tariff on just over one third of that.

In terms of our offensive interests, Ireland currently exports roughly €2 billion in goods and services to the Mercosur region, a region with 260 million people now. We believe that trade could double over the next decade, with particular sectors benefitting like the dairy sector, the drinks industry, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, industrial goods and Irish small and medium-sized enterprises. We believe that it is absolutely crucial that we have safeguards in place for labour standards and environmental standards, and it is intended to write into the agreement specifically that Mercosur countries must honour and not depart from the Paris accord. As President Macron and I have indicated, it is our view that Mercosur is off should they do so. We will of course work to protect the interests of Irish beef farmers so that they can compete on a level playing field when it comes to product standards, traceability, the environment and climate action.

Deputy Calleary was absolutely correct in saying that there was a lot more happening on the European stage than Brexit - issues such as climate action and issues such as trade - but it is a reality that Brexit takes up so much Government time that we do not have the time to focus on those issues as much as we would like. We do give them adequate time, though.

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