Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 74: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation the details of any trade agreements between Ireland and the Gadaffi regime in Libya and the volume of trade between Libya and Ireland; the status of same in view of the current crisis in that country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6026/11]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 75: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation the details of any trade or other agreements between Ireland and the Gulf states of Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait or Saudi Arabia; and if same should be suspended in view of the repression being visited by those states on pro-democracy movements and activists, and their more general denial of basic civil rights to their citizens. [6027/11]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 74 and 75 together.

The Deputy will be aware that under the Treaties of the European Union, the EU acts as a single entity in its trade dealings with third countries, operating a single policy, known as the Common Commercial Policy (CCP). The Commission has competence in negotiations on CCP related issues and, therefore, it conducts trade negotiations on behalf of the EU. The Commission is currently discussing a Free Trade Agreement with the Gulf Co-operation Council, (which includes Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). These discussions are ongoing and have been for a considerable time. In relation to Libya, the Commission had been negotiating a Framework Agreement (an overarching agreement of which Trade would be one element), between the EU and that country, but these negotiations were suspended last month.

Accordingly my Department does not have any trade agreements with any of the countries mentioned. Neither do we have any other agreements with them. Ireland does however participate in a number of Joint Economic Commissions (JECs) including with Libya and Saudi Arabia. JECs are formal Bilateral Intergovernmental fora, dealing with all aspects of trade development between two countries, as well as the development of economic and business cooperation and scientific and technological cooperation. Meetings of these JECs are normally held every two years and are hosted alternately in each of the two countries involved. The most recent meeting of the Ireland/Saudi Arabia JEC was held in June 2010. In the case of the Ireland/Libya JEC, the most recent meeting took place in October 2010; this was the first such meeting with that country after a gap of almost 20 years. Both these meetings were hosted by Ireland.

Trade sanctions or similar measures are sometimes advocated by concerned groups in relation to some countries, on the basis of their human rights record. Trade policy and market access issues are, as mentioned above, largely EU competencies, and restrictions on trade would have to be concerted at EU level. As a small trading nation which makes its way in the world by selling our products and services abroad, Ireland is always cautious about proposals to subordinate trade policy to political objectives. We can only consider such action in the broader context of EU or UN sanctions. Where sanctions based on political considerations are applied, they need to be carefully considered and designed to avoid causing hardship to the general population of a country. For this reason also, general trade sanctions are rarely applied.

Regarding the levels of trade between Ireland and these countries, the details are shown on the tables below. The latest merchandise trade details are available for the period January - November 2010 and the latest services statistics are in respect of the year 2009.

Trade between Ireland and the countries listed below.