Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Today, the European Court of Justice, ECJ, issued a ruling on the Singapore free trade agreement, specifically on the question of whether it is a mixed agreement or can be negotiated exclusively by the EU. The ECJ's ruling is clear: in any investor-state dispute mechanism, which are the corporate courts that the House has debated, ratification by all member states is required. This important ruling vindicates to some extent the stand that the House has taken. The European Commission told us that it has exclusive competence in this area, but it was wrong. It also told us that the comprehensive economic and trade agreement, CETA, between Canada and Europe was entirely legal in EU law. However, we will not know that until it has been tested before the ECJ. The court made clear that today's ruling merely relates to who has the competence to agree and that it does not deal with the question of legality, which will be dealt with by means of separate process. Under Article 218.11 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union, Ireland has the power to refer CETA to the ECJ at any time so that a ruling can be made. I hope that someone does refer it so that we can make decisions about ratification that are fully informed by the ECJ.

In the meantime, Ireland will need to decide on whether we want to move the extra step from provisional application, which contains all of the benefits of tariffs and so forth that we have heard about at length, to ratification and bring upon ourselves investor-state dispute mechanisms. There is no time limit on us staying in a stage of provisional application, so we can remain there for as long as we wish. I ask all Senators to consider whether we should be moving to the next stage at this point.

Mr. Barnier was clear that the second stage of his Brexit negotiations will relate to a trade agreement with the UK. We must ask ourselves whether any such trade agreement, which would need to be voted on by every parliament in Europe, would be acceptable or passable if it contained an investor-state dispute mechanism. I suggest that it is in Ireland's interests to ensure that our trade agreements move past the inclusion of these mechanisms.