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

I propose to take Questions Nos. 20 to 31, inclusive, together.

As the House will be aware, Chancellor Olaf Scholz took up his office on 8 December as the head of the new German coalition Government. Ireland and Germany are close partners and friends, and I was therefore pleased to have the opportunity to talk to him by phone on 1 December, prior to his formal appointment. I also subsequently wrote to congratulate him and to express my commitment to working with him on shared challenges the EU faces in the period ahead.

In our call, we discussed some of those challenges, including Covid-19. We noted the importance both of our Governments attach to climate action and the need to achieve a green transition. I also took the opportunity to brief him on the importance of the Northern Ireland protocol as a means of mitigating the negative consequences of Brexit and protecting the Good Friday Agreement. I expressed our appreciation for the solidarity the previous German Government had offered Ireland throughout the negotiations on Brexit, and he was very clear to me this would continue under the new Administration.

I had the opportunity to meet him in person, along with other European leaders, at the meeting of the European Council on 15 to 16 December. Our meeting had a wide agenda, including Covid-19, crisis management and resilience, energy prices, security and defence, migration and a number of external issues, including Belarus, Ukraine, our southern neighbourhood and Ethiopia. Ahead of our meeting, the EU 27 leaders attended an eastern partnership summit, which was also attended by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Belarus has suspended its participation in the partnership, and at our meeting we left a symbolic empty chair, which we hope will be filled by a representative of a democratically elected government in Belarus in the near future.

I also attended a euro summit on 16 December at which we heard the economic assessment of the President of the European Central Bank, ECB, Ms Christine Lagarde, and the president of the Eurogroup, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. We also considered progress on banking union and capital markets union.

I most recently met the President of the European Commission at the meeting of the European Council. The Commission has played an important role in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic, including in relation to vaccines, and I am in regular contact with the President by phone on this and other matters.

I wrote to the newly elected President of the European Parliament, Ms Roberta Metsola, this week to congratulate her on her election and I look forward to working with her on the challenges Europe faces. I also welcomed her tribute to victims of gender-based violence, including Ashling Murphy, which resonated so strongly with everybody here.

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