Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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32. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade for an update on the plans, if any, of the European Commission to review the EU Israel Association Agreement in light of the atrocities in Gaza over the past 12 months. [40300/24]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, in February 2024, the then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain wrote to the President of the European Commission requesting an urgent review of whether Israel is complying with its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

I have continued to underline the importance of such a review at successive meetings of the Foreign Affairs Council, most recently at my informal meetings with EU counterparts in Brussels on 29 August and in New York on 23 September. The Taoiseach has raised this issue in a meeting with President Von Der Leyen on 11 April and on a number of occasions since.

I welcome that the EU HR / VP has called for an extraordinary meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council to discuss the issue of compliance and that there is clear agreement among EU Member States that any such meeting cannot be “business as usual”.

Furthermore, it is now completely clear that a review of EU-Israel relations is even more pressing in view of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice of 19 July 2024. This is a point I made very strongly during my informal meeting with EU Ministers in New York on Monday 23 September. I will continue to press for the EU to review its relations with Israel, including in light of the Advisory Opinion of the ICJ and the Resolution adopted by General Assembly on the Advisory Opinion.