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

I propose to take Questions Nos. 4 to 7, inclusive, together.

I attended a meeting of the European Council on 21 and 22 October in Brussels. The agenda covered Covid-19, energy prices, trade, external relations, migration and digital transformation. We also had a discussion on the rule of law in the European Union.

We discussed Covid-19, with a particular focus on vaccination rates across the European Union in the context of rising infection rates in many member states and tackling disinformation about the pandemic. We also discussed the importance of the global roll-out of vaccines and the central role of the World Health Organization in global health governance.

On energy prices, we discussed what we can do individually, as member states, and collectively, at European Union level, to mitigate the impact of recent price fluctuations on vulnerable citizens and businesses. We also considered medium and long-term measures to increase the European Union's energy resilience and green transition.

We also discussed digital issues, including ongoing progress on the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act, ahead of the publication of a European chips Act planned by the Commission.

We discussed trade, including its coherence with the overall international perspective of the European Union and, of course, critically the importance of trade to global economic recovery.

We discussed migration, including ongoing work to support countries of origin and transit.

We called on Turkey to implement fully the European Union-Turkey statement of 2016, including vis-à-visthe Republic of Cyprus.

We also discussed a new issue of enormous concern: the instrumentalisation of vulnerable migrants by the Lukashenko regime in Belarus.

We agreed conclusions on a number of important summits, including COP15 on biodiversity; the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, which I attended; the Asia-Europe summit, in which I will participate when it will be held virtually on 25 and 26 November; and the European Union-Eastern Partnership summit to be held in Brussels on 15 December.

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