Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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22. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he supports a European Union wide ban on certain Israeli settlement goods; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19283/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The EU has a clear and long standing position that Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal, and are damaging to the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Products from these settlements therefore are severely penalised by being ineligible for the lower tariffs applicable to goods from Israel, or from Palestinian producers, or many other countries.

Consideration has been given for some time to EU level guidelines on the labeling of goods from settlements, to prevent them being misrepresented as produce of Israel. In March I co-signed a letter with 15 other EU Foreign Ministers urging the High Representative to push this proposal forward again, and following yesterday’s discussion at the Foreign Affairs Council I am confident of early progress on this issue.

In 2014, Ireland and many other EU members published advice warning citizens against investing in settlements.