Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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79. To ask the Minister for Defence his proposals for cultivating closer EU/UN relations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21320/13]

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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84. To ask the Minister for Defence his proposals for improving EU/UN relations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21301/13]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 79 and 84 together.

The EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy forms an integral part of the Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. In the area of Common Security and Defence Policy, the role of the Presidency is now limited to supporting the High Representative and the European External Action Service in this regard. However, that said, this arrangement provides Ireland with an opportunity to influence the Common Security and Defence Policy agenda. T he EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy forms an integral part of the Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. In the area of Common Security and Defence Policy, the role of the Presidency is now limited to supporting the High Representative and the European External Action Service in this regard. However, that said, this arrangement provides Ireland with an opportunity to influence the Common Security and Defence Policy agenda.

Following on from an initiative by Ireland, the EU adopted an Action Plan on EU/UN co-operation. This action plan provides the contextual backdrop to the adoption as part of Ireland’s Presidency of the European Council 2013, the enhancement of EU/UN Relations, in particular, through EU engagement and participation in UN Peacekeeping.

I, and my Department, hosted a very successful and well attended seminar in Dublin Castle on this subject. Speakers from the EU, NATO, the UN and, for the first time, the African Union, as well as academia gave informative presentations to over 120 delegates who attended from all over Europe.

This seminar informed the follow up discussion at the Informal meeting of EU Defence Ministers who recognised the primacy of the UN in the maintenance of international peace and security and the requirement for the EU to work hand in hand with the UN. Attendance by the UN at the Informal meeting of EU Ministers for Defence, represented by the Under Secretary General at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, has cemented this priority into the thinking of the EU.

Evidence of the deepening of co-operation between the European Union and the United Nations has resulted in the re-establishment of an EU/UN steering board which now meets on a regular basis. The most recent meeting took place two weeks ago. Furthermore at that meeting the UN undertook to provide the EU with a list of capabilities it requires to undertake international peacekeeping operations so as to ascertain how the EU may assist. As such we now have a concrete process for cultivating closer co-operation between the EU and the UN, partly as a result of this being made a priority of our Presidency.

In summary, this priority has and will continue to provide impetus to the Union as a whole to the enhancement of co-operation between the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy and the United Nations.