THE EU’S FOREIGN policy chief has written to a Sinn Féin MEP who demanded she retract “deeply inaccurate” remarks about Ireland’s history.

European Commission vice-president Kaja Kallas said in the European Parliament in May that Ireland got to “build up” its “prosperity” following World War II, while other European countries behind the Iron Curtain experienced “atrocities, mass deportations, suppression of our culture and language”.

Ireland South MEP Kathleen Funchion said Kallas’ remarks were “ill-advised” and should be withdrawn. She said her comments, made in the Parliament’s chamber during a debate on global conflict, were “deeply inaccurate”.

In a letter to Funchion, seen by The Journal, Kallas did not apologise or confirm that she would withdraw the remarks. She said, however, that she regretted that her comments in the chamber were left open to interpretation.

Kallas wrote: “My remarks were in no way intended to gloss over the difficult experiences in your history, and I regret if they lent themselves to such an interpretation.”

Thanking the MEP for her letter, the EU’s High Representative said that debates in the European Parliament’s chamber are “not always conducive to doing full justice to the complexity of history”.

She assured Funchion that she was “very well aware of the painful chapters in Ireland’s history in the last decades of the twentieth century”, adding that the “experience of the Irish people informs the European Union’s strategic culture in equal measure as do the experiences of countries once oppressed by the Soviet Union.”

Kallas acknowledged that without a “proper and mutual understanding” of that history, politicians cannot fully acknowledge the complex policy differences between member states currently – Ireland’s military neutrality in this instance.

Before signing off the letter with “is mise, le meas”, Kallas said she sincerely appreciates Ireland’s contribution to restoring peace in Ukraine and progressing the EU’s mandate in that regard.

Funchion told The Journal that she welcomed the letter from Kallas. The Sinn Féin MEP said it was important that the EU’s top diplomat acknowledged “how her earlier comments were left open to interpretation and the hurt they caused”.

“For many Irish families and communities, the trauma of the past is still very present and the pursuit of truth and justice is still ongoing,” Funchion said, adding that the EU must not overlook that, and should support those goals.

Funchion added she would continue to defend those who are still seeking justice in Ireland.