Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2023-12-13
============================================================

Leo Varadkar (FG), Dublin West

The answer is "Yes". The legal advice is that trade is an EU competence. Suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement and imposing any form of trade sanctions can be done only on a Europe-wide basis. That requires a consensus and unanimity among all 27 member states. That is the position. It is a political fact, and it is also the legal advice. I am happy to clarify that again in this Chamber. I am not sure quite how many times I have done so now.
We believe the time has come for sanctions to be taken with regard to activities, particularly in the West Bank. The Tánaiste has been liaising with his counterparts in a number of other member states on this matter. One thing we want to do - and work is being done on this - is impose restrictions and travel bans, particularly on Israeli settlers. I refer to those who are-----

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-12-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:32+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-12-13