{"id":41367,"date":"2025-09-24T21:04:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T21:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/41367\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T21:04:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T21:04:07","slug":"ireland-seeks-eu-vote-on-package-of-economic-sanctions-on-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/41367\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland seeks EU vote on package of economic sanctions on Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland will ask EU countries \u201cwhich side of history they want to be on\u201d, as the Government urges a vote on an EU package of economic sanctions on Israel.<\/p>\n

Ireland has been seeking an early vote on a sanctions package proposed by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. It has spent some of UN High Level Week in New York urging EU partners to approve the sanctions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The EU is Israel\u2019s largest trading partner, so the tariffs could have far-reaching effects on Israel\u2019s economy, which is already rattled by the cost of a long war.<\/p>\n

Roughly \u20ac32m in bilateral funds controlled by the European Commission would be immediately suspended, and Israel\u2019s preferential status with the EU would be damaged.<\/p>\n

Speaking in New York on Wednesday, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said while the vote of the European Council would be deemed \u201cearly\u201d by that body\u2019s standards, it would come some 23 months into Israel\u2019s bombardment of Gaza.<\/p>\n

Mr Harris said that while there was consideration around whether a vote has the support to pass the council\u2019s qualified majority voting, it was time to ask EU states to make a decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to not allow a situation where people don\u2019t have to vote,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n We need to actually put this on the table and let every country decide which side of history they want to be on.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want to vote for measures that can make a real and meaningful difference? Do you believe that there should be consequences for a country that breaches its agreement to the European Union? Do you believe that international law should always be applied consistently, or only in certain circumstances? I don\u2019t think there should be any space for kind of hiding in the shadows on this.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a democrat, I want to be able to democratically vote on behalf of Ireland in relation to the adoption of these measures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Harris\u2019 fellow foreign affairs ministers from Belgium, Slovenia, Spain, and Luxembourg have co-signed a letter to the EU\u2019s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, calling for the suspension and sanctions to be \u201curgently taken forward for decision\u201d by the European Council.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, energy minister Darragh O\u2019Brien will meet with energy companies later this week in a bid to protect vulnerable customers during the winter.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien said the situation for customers would not be \u201chopeless\u201d, despite an increase in energy tariffs across the board in recent months: \u201cI will have specific asks of them in relation to vulnerable customers in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be reiterating that there will not be an energy credit in this budget, and there\u2019s a responsibility amongst those firms as well to ensure that the energy they\u2019re providing is costed fairly and is affordable.<\/p>\n

\n Energy prices are a real concern for people, particularly families.\n <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien said his department had carried out an analysis of pricing, which will be brought to the meeting with providers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are companies that are independent of me, but the CRU [Commission for Regulation of Utilities] obviously has a role to play within that. I want to let those discussions happen. I don\u2019t want to pre-empt what will happen there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m expecting the companies to come to me with their suggestions. I\u2019m concerned at the arrears levels on gas and on electricity, they\u2019re significantly high. And we\u2019re not an outlier in Europe on this, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019ve discussed [here in New York] is energy pricing full stop across the world.”<\/p>\n

Asked about US president Donald Trump\u2019s comments in his speech to the UN on Tuesday, which called climate change a \u201ccon job\u201d, Mr O\u2019Brien said the Government \u201crespectfully\u201d does not agree with him: \u201cI think there\u2019s a determination amongst most states, including Ireland as well, to continue our green transition, because it\u2019s good economically, it\u2019s good for our climate. The expansion of renewables is real.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland will ask EU countries \u201cwhich side of history they want to be on\u201d, as the Government urges…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4712,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-41367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-israel-palestine","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}