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

I attended a meeting of the European Council in Brussels on 15 and 16 October. The agenda included Brexit, Covid-19, climate action, EU relations with Africa, and a number of external relations issues.

On Brexit, the European Union chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, shared his assessment of the state of play in the negotiations. While recalling our determination to have as close as possible a partnership with the United Kingdom, the European Council noted that further progress was needed on a number of key issues, in particular the level playing field, governance and fisheries, if agreement is to be achieved. I was joined by a number of other leaders in insisting on the importance of a fair and balanced outcome on fisheries for our fishing enterprises and our coastal communities. There was also agreement on the need for full and timely implementation of the withdrawal agreement, including the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland.

On Covid-19, we agreed that the current epidemiological situation gives rise to very serious concerns. In welcoming progress on better co-ordination of travel within the European Union, we called for stronger co-ordination in areas including quarantine, cross-border contact tracing, testing strategies and the mutual recognition of tests. We also welcomed ongoing work on the development and distribution of vaccines.

We held a positive exchange on climate action and will return to this issue at our meeting in December. I expressed the Government's support for the Commission's proposal for increased ambition at European Union level, including setting a target of at least a 55% reduction in carbon by 2030.

On Friday we held a strategic discussion on Africa in preparation for the European Union-African Union summit planned for 2021. We touched on the situation in Belarus and the shooting down of flight MH17, and separately on the European Union's relationship with our southern neighbourhood. We discussed Turkey and condemned recent provocative maritime activity by Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean. We will return to this issue at future meetings. In addition to attending the meeting of the European Council, I also had a bilateral meeting with President Emmanuel Macron of France. This focused in particular on Brexit, including our shared determination to secure a fair and balanced outcome on fish and Covid-19 in France and Ireland.

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