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

I attended a special meeting of the European Council in Brussels on 1 and 2 October at which we discussed the health and economic impacts of Covid-19 and agreed the need to strengthen our co-ordination especially as regards the development and distribution of a vaccine at European Union level. The response to Covid-19 also formed part of our consideration of our agenda item on the Single Market, industrial and digital policy. The Single Market will be a strong driver of our economic recovery with the twin pillars of the green and digital transformations helping us to foster new forms of growth, cohesion and convergence while strengthening the European Union's resilience.

On the second day of our meeting, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, provided an update on the Brexit negotiations with the United Kingdom. This followed a bilateral meeting I had with her on 1 October when we discussed the state of play of these negotiations. We agreed that for any deal on the future relationship to be possible, the United Kingdom would have to work to restore the trust of all European Union member states by implementing the withdrawal agreement fully and in good faith.

The Commission began the process of infringement proceedings against the United Kingdom on that day. Then I shared my assessment on the current state of play on the remaining prospects for a free trade deal to be agreed in the period ahead and on the importance of sustained and positive progress on implementing the protocol.

The European Council also discussed a number of important external relations issues. We considered European Union relations with Turkey and emphasised the need for a stable and secure environment in the eastern Mediterranean. We again considered the situation in Belarus which we had also discussed by video conference in August and we agreed targeted sanctions.

We had a broad discussion on European Union and China relations, covering our economic and trade relationship but also calling on China to assume greater responsibility in dealing with global challenges, including climate change and multilateral responses to Covid-19. We also expressed serious concern about the human rights situation in China.

We called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh where there has been an escalation of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We also condemned the assassination attempt of Alexei Navalny in Russia and agreed to return to this matter at our next meeting on 15 and 16 October.

While in Brussels, I took the opportunity on Friday to meet with the commissioner-designate Mairead McGuinness who earlier that day had her hearing before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, ECON, of the European Parliament.

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