John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for his statement. Ongoing fears and concerns around the rampant progression of the Delta variant are impacting throughout the world and serve to highlight our global interdependence. Until we achieve universal vaccination, new variants will continue to emerge. The Taoiseach has stated that there is a race between variants and vaccines. This is a race we will lose unless the EU, along with other key international actors, takes immediate steps to facilitate the implantation of a universal vaccination programme. We need to see real and unfettered support for the WTO vaccine waiver.

I welcome the ongoing determination of the EU and the US Administration in their efforts to protect the Good Friday Agreement and their commitment to the protocol and its implementation. The pragmatic efforts of the EU to avoid confrontation over the protocol during the upcoming marching season are welcome. The business, retail and farming communities in the North need the stability and protections the protocol offers. Neither the DUP nor loyalist paramilitary representatives speak for the people of the North on the protocol. There is no credible alternative available. The full and smooth implementation of the protocol will offer the North a strategic platform from which to have ongoing access to the Single Market. It will give businesses the certainty and stability they require. The granting of observer status to representatives from the North at the European Parliament is critically important to addressing the democratic deficit. I am interested to hear what measures the Government is taking to address this serious issue.

I welcome the comments of Josep Borrell Fontelles, who has described the situation in the Tigray region of Ethiopia as appalling. I also welcome the condemnation by the European Council of the ongoing atrocities, ethnic and sexual violence and other human rights violations that are occurring there daily. Commitments of support are not enough, however. Tigray is on the cusp of a major famine, with the potential for devastating loss of life. Action must be taken now. Since the Council meeting, the Ethiopian Government has announced a unilateral ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. While this is welcome, it does not take cognisance of the fact that, despite the retreat of the Ethiopian army following a number of heavy defeats in Tigray, Eritrean and Amhara forces are still fighting in the region.

For the ceasefire to take effect, Eritrean and Amhara forces must withdraw from the region with immediate effect. The EU needs to use its influence to ensure safe humanitarian corridors are opened to allow the resumption of aid to famine-threatened areas of the region. Tigray forces have already stated they will facilitate and safeguard any humanitarian operations. Every diplomatic effort needs to be made to ensure the Ethiopian authorities are not permitted to block essential humanitarian assistance in Tigray. The EU and other international actors must also make every effort to initiate the withdrawal of Eritrean and Amhara forces in order to develop meaningful dialogue between the Ethiopian and Tigrayan Governments.

The very justifiable anger visited upon the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán at the Council meeting was a welcome exhibition of European unity on an important human rights issue. This discriminatory attack against the LGBTQI+ community in Hungary is a blatant act of politicking. Hungary is an EU member state, with the duties and responsibilities this entails. It is also a state that, under Mr. Orbán, has been declassified as a democracy and deemed a hybrid regime by the NGO, Freedom House. Mr. Orbán has criticised NGOs, curtailed the media and academic freedoms, demonised migrants and asserted control over the Hungarian judiciary. However, he is permitted to veto key EU initiatives. This is absolutely unacceptable.

There is no place within the European project for this form of behaviour. The EU must act, and be seen to act, not just by Hungary but by other eastern European states that are entertaining right-wing, anti-democratic agendas. Mr. Orbán has driven a domestic political agenda through the othering of minority groups, including the LGBTQI+ community and migrants, to name just two. It is important to note that Mr. Orbán is currently under pressure as Hungary prepares to go to the polls next year. Left to his own devices, he will push the country further to the right in order to polarise Hungarian society further. The EU must act now on this matter.

The decision by EU leaders to address the pressing issue of migration by throwing cash at it, in the hope of keeping the problem at bay, is a matter of grave concern.

Equally concerning however is the apparent ease with which the EU is prepared to overlook the aggressive intent of the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the Eastern Mediterranean where there are ongoing unresolved disputes with Greece and Cyprus. The EU logic on that matter is that despite the fact that Erdoğan has done little to resolve differences, the fact that the situation has not escalated since December, when the EU was advocating sanctions, is something we should applaud him for. There are also serious concerns over human rights abuses in Turkey itself, particularly against the Kurdish community, including the repression of political parties. Turkey’s ambitions for an expansionist role as a regional power are also an instrumental factor in exacerbating the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The reality is that Europe is desperate to maintain Turkish co-operation in the creation of a cordon sanitaireon Europe’s borders in order to keep out migrants. When I use the term migrants, I am of course referring to those refugees who have fled in fear for their lives, from conflict zones, from death and sexual violence, from extreme poverty and from the growing impact of global warming. The EU has already given Turkey €4 billion, with another €2 billion pending in payment under the same arrangement, to house some 3.7 million Syrian refugees in camps in Turkey. Following last week’s European Council meeting, EU leaders, including the Taoiseach, came to an agreement to pay Turkey an additional €3.5 billion, over a period from 2021 to 2024, to continue to provide a bulwark between the EU and the millions of Syrian refugees who have fled their homeland. The €3.5 billion which is to be given to Turkey is part of a larger €5.7 billion package that will fund other countries surrounding Syria. This will result in a ridiculous situation where the EU will be paying Lebanon, amongst others, to house Syrian refugees, alongside funding the EU Frontex programme, which will be used to keep Lebanese refugees out of Europe. The migrant policing package for Turkey is only part of a range of enticements the EU is looking at in order to keep Erdoğan onside, with the possibility of a modernisation of the customs union, alongside moves to kick-start high-level discussions with Erdoğan on a range of issues, from health to security. We need to see a level of even-handedness in the approach of the EU towards states that engage in actions that are counter to the values and ethos the EU purports to stand for.

I conclude my remarks by bringing attention back to the fact that this House recently passed an historic motion on the issue of the illegal annexation of Palestinian lands by Israel, namely, that Ireland’s stance is that illegal annexation has and continues to take place. As we stand here this afternoon, Palestinian families are being forcibly evicted from their homes in Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem by armed Israeli crowbar brigades and are being forced to watch as their homes and businesses are torn down around them. Thus, we have a responsibility to take this to Europe and argue and campaign for the triggering of appropriate sanctions against Israel. I will listen with interest to see whether the issue was even discussed at the recent European Council meeting. The Government must also move to implement fully the occupied territories Bill and give long overdue recognition to the state of Palestine.

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