Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It seems to me that there is a crisis in terms of the EU's commitment to even its own human rights legislation and to international law. The newly elected Chancellor of Germany has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to Germany. This is somebody who has an arrest warrant out for him by the ICC for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the new German Chancellor is inviting him to Germany. Now, that is very serious because Germany is one of the most important countries in the EU and basically what it is saying is that it does not give a damn about international law, about human rights or the crimes for which the ICC has indicted Benjamin Netanyahu. It is giving two fingers to international law. That poses a pretty serious problem for the EU. There is also the fact that an Irish MEP and other MEPs on an EU delegation on a pre-organised visit by representatives of the EU to Israel have been deported. Israel is given favoured trade status by the EU and then an EU delegation goes to Israel, they are not allowed in and are deported because they criticised the Israeli Government for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Does the Taoiseach agree this is a pretty serious crisis in terms of the foreign policy, the ethical stand, the commitment to human rights and international law facing the European Union? Has he any comments?

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