Speeches

Mr President, like a lot of other speakers, I recognise the importance of COP26, but I am not optimistic about the outcome. On the one hand, we have so many governments who know the right thing to do but don’t know how to turn that to electoral advantage. On the other hand, as was said in France in 2017, there are millions of people for whom the end of the world is far less a pressing issue than the end of the month as far as their pocket is concerned. So it is my view that, until we have a binding, justiciable international agreement based on a minimum carbon price, while acknowledging the specific vulnerabilities of developing countries, we’re setting ourselves up for failure. The Paris Climate Accord is voluntary and based on two degrees of warming that I don’t think anybody believes is achievable at this point. Climate change is driving disease, conflict and migration – sometimes all three at once. Seeing it as a security issue might help. Otherwise, I feel that we are relying on the intellect, the activism and, frankly, the idealism of the next generation to clean up our mess.

Madam President, democratic backsliding is at a crisis point, as Freedom House has pointed out. According to their democracy index, 2020 is the 16th consecutive year of the decline in global freedom. It is astonishing to record that less than 20% of people across the globe live in free countries in 2021. Commissioner Breton, as you yourself said, ‘Reforming the digital space is a matter of survival for our democracies’, and I don’t believe that is hyperbole. Putin’s Russia has been seeking to poison our democracy, both literally and figuratively. This evening our focus is on social media platforms. As many other speakers have pointed out, Facebook has once again messed up, and the Senate heard today that, with the flick of a switch, Facebook could stop the weakening of our democracies. Facebook could make the internet safer for our children. With the flick of a switch, it could stop hate, but it chooses profit over people. As Mr Glucksmann has pointed out, our tools are woefully inadequate to meet these challenges.

Madam President, the picture could not be any clearer. For state actors hostile to the EU, like Russia, the cost of attack is infinitesimally smaller than the rewards, and that has to change. For critical entities across the EU, including the Irish Health Service, the cost of doing nothing except repair and remediation was much less than the cost of adequate protection, and that has to change too. While we have to be conscious of the difference between cybersecurity and cyber defence, particularly as regards governance and oversight, I believe that non-aligned Member States like Ireland have nothing to fear and everything to gain from an adequately resourced European cyber defence policy, particularly as a domain of operations of the EU’s common security and defence policy (CSDP) to which we have contributed significantly over the years. EU democracy is not something that can be complacently handed down from one generation to the next. Each succeeding generation must earn it afresh.

Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Commissioner Urpilainen for her assistance in the launch of the SDG Alliance here in Parliament two weeks ago. I very much welcome the many references to the SDGs in Ms Rivasi’s report and to Agenda 2030. It is very clear that the only way we will achieve policy coherence for sustainable development is if we can marshal the facts, if we have the data, and it is clear that we do not. I was very struck by a detail in a European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) report, which showed that the Netherlands has lost 86% of its butterfly species since 1989. A small fact, but from which we can extrapolate the losses that have been experienced in the European Union and across the globe. I think this is why it’s important that we have an annual report on implementation of the SDGs here in this Parliament. It’s something that was done for the first time, and the last time, in 2019. We need to bring it back onto the agenda, to have an annual report on SDG implementation. So I commend the resolution. Our success as a species has been at the expense of almost every other species, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Madam President, Commissioner, colleagues, 690 million people are chronically hungry today, and hunger has increased every year since 2015, when the SDGs were announced as a pathway to zero hunger. And yet one third of the food we produce is never eaten, and our diets are a major contribution to environmental damage and to loss of biodiversity. Our food system is broken. We have to change the way we produce, distribute and consume food. Some do not get enough food, while many millions more do not get enough of the right food. It is estimated that three billion people cannot afford a healthy diet. I strongly welcome the UN Food Systems Summit and its call to action next week, but we must get the SDGs back on track. Food systems affect every one of the SDGs in different ways. That is why myself and other like-minded MEPs, including Madam President, set up the SDG Alliance here in the European Parliament, which will be launched next week with contributions from Commissioners Gentiloni and Urpilainen. We want to remind people of the extent to which Agenda 2030 can be a roadmap for building back better and a guiding principle in all EU policies. The one area I would like to focus on this evening is the lack of any plan to finance Agenda 2030. I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission about their concrete plans for financing SDG 2 (‘Zero Hunger’). A convincing solution to financing Agenda 2030 involves financial intermediation from multilateral development banks to support long-term development financing. Does the Commission have a plan for providing further capital for these banks? Also, public debt has increased in 108 countries in 2020, placing further pressure on states’ ability to produce sustainable food systems. Does the Commission intend to promote debt relief outside of the G20 process? The only way to get the SDGs back to the foreground of public policy is by working across political lines and across borders. The SDG Alliance here in the European Parliament is well placed to be a lead advocate for that purpose.

Madam President, the limited objectives achieved in the last 20 years in Afghanistan were all development objectives, normally achieved by development professionals. So when we suspend development aid, we must remember that we are suspending the salaries of the doctors and the nurses and the teachers that have achieved those objectives. But we must not end humanitarian aid. It must continue based on the humanitarian principles of impartiality, independence, neutrality and transparency. I would call on the Commission to exercise the flexibility that is required so that the thousands of development workers that are able to deliver humanitarian aid are allowed to continue to do that, perhaps under the rapid response pillar of the Global Europe Instrument. I would also call on the Commission to work on the flexibility required to make sure that we don’t fall foul unnecessarily of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing objectives, in order to guarantee humanitarian access based on risk analysis and derogations. Finally, I call on the Commission to acknowledge that it is not an absolute requirement of international humanitarian law that a request for humanitarian assistance be made by the Afghan Government.

Madam President, I wish to make an argument for the extension of our sanctions regime to crimes of corruption and fraud. In April the UK extended its sanctions regime to 14 Russian nationals, the same 14 Russian nationals who were uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky himself. The same 14 Russian nationals were subjected to no sanctions here in the EU. They’re not even on the EU consolidated financial sanctions list. And by creating a differentiated sanctions regime between the US, the UK and the EU, we open ourselves to a form of sanctions arbitrage and we open ourselves to the possibility of a compliance burden on multinationals that work across the jurisdictions of the EU, US and the UK. I would like to also say that as a representative of a smaller Member State, I support the idea of qualified majority voting in this area. I support it because if not in genocide, if not in torture, if not in crimes against humanity, then when? The space for impunity is shrinking, so let us complete the heroic work of Sergei Magnitsky.

Mr President, High Representative Borrell, this debate is focused on foreign intervention in the democratic operation of the European Union. I believe, however, that we need to bring domestic efforts to accuracy. To put this idea before you, I want to go back to an event that happened in the Subcommittee on Security and Defence of the European Parliament, last April. During the committee meeting, I am ashamed to say that two Irish MEPs used their platform to promote their conspiracy theory, saying that the White Helmets chemically attacked the civilians of the city of Douma in Syria. Mr Borrell, I would like to conclude by saying that Irish MEPs often work together on important files but, I would like to bring this wrong information to your attention. Until now, I was silent but I stand against the attackers of our democracy from within. I want to say – that I am not for them.