Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I was delighted to see her appointment as Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs. I only lament that she will have a short time before a general election. Hers is one of the better appointments made by the Taoiseach a couple of weeks ago.

On Europe Day I want to highlight not the benefits of European integration and investment, which many Members have spoken about, but the idea and concept of Europe as a peace project, and where it sits now in light of the conflict in Gaza. The European Union is a project that took bitter enemies and people of different nationalities for whom borders have been fought over and moved for centuries, and locked them into a system of economic and then political dependency. This made sure that any decision to go to war with each other would become almost impossible. We are the people reaping the benefits of this stability in the EU over the past 80 years. It was and is a very noble project but I fear that at present it is under threat, in particular with regard to moral leadership when it comes to foreign policy at European Union level.

We are engaging in selective moralism on foreign policy when we contrast the strong stance taken by the EU against the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the divided response to the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. As a collective, we have been sadly lacking as a supposed leader in ethical foreign policy when it comes to watching the continuing horror in Gaza. Some countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, are continuing to supply weapons to a country engaging in ethnic cleansing and genocide. There are some notable exceptions to this and I count Ireland, Spain and Belgium among those who have not left their strategic interest or misguided sense of guilt and loyalty towards Israel to colour their approach to the humanitarian catastrophe, which, similar to the horrors of the Holocaust, history will continue to judge.

There is time for the EU to change course in its approach to the conflict and re-establish itself as a moral leader in the area of international foreign policy. Now is the time to recognise the state of Palestine and I very much welcome the reports that Ireland, along with some of its allies, will do so this month. The Taoiseach spoke about this in the past hour. The EU should apply pressure to its US allies and Israel to accept the terms of a regionally negotiated ceasefire. It was disheartening to watch Hamas accept the terms of the ceasefire the other day while Israel continued a ground offensive into Rafah where it has essentially caged people who have moved from the rest of Gaza, which has been destroyed. We need a breakthrough by whatever means necessary, and I mean by whatever means necessary, to break the humanitarian blockade and stranglehold that Israel has on food and other essential items getting into Gaza.

The EU can, and should, be a beacon for what can happen when bitter enemies accept the existence of each other and the need to live peacefully in a region alongside each other. Perhaps they can move from fighting to co-existence or even, as the EU proves, to co-operative and warm relationships. For this to happen it requires not only diplomatic and strategic calculations but moral and humanitarian leadership, which has been sorely lacking in the past seven months at EU level.