TÁNAISTE SIMON HARRIS has vowed to set out the timeline for the government’s version of the Occupied Territories bill, pledging progress will be made “within weeks”. 

His promise comes amid the release of a joint statement yesterday from Harris and foreign ministers from Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia and Spain condemning Israel’s plans for a prolonged occupation of Gaza and rejection of the prospect of any measure that would forcibly displace the population. 

In addition to pushing on with the Occupied Territories legislation, Harris said he plans to write to the EU Commission demanding a review of the EU trade agreement with Israel, a request that was already sent to European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen last year, which received no response. 

Occupied Territories legislation

Harris met with Senator Frances Black, who drafted the original Occupied Territories Bill, yesterday.

He told reporters he plans to speak with her again next week, stating that he plans to set out a timeline of when the government’s legislation can be implemented.

While the Tánaiste would not go into specifics, he set out that he plans to seek Cabinet approval “very quickly” to draft the government bill that would ban the importation of goods from illegal Israeli settlements. 

“I’d like to do it within weeks and I’d like to do it before the summer recess,” he said.

“I do intend, as the responsible minister, to honour the programme for government commitment in terms of legislating in relation to trade with the occupied Palestinian territories,” added Harris. 

Harris said he didn’t want there to be any doubt about the government’s motivations to move this bill quickly, but he added that it is “important that any bill we produce is robust”. 

“I don’t want to pass any bill that makes people feel better in terms of we’ve done something, but it doesn’t have impact. We’re in the business here of trying to have impact, trying to stop the killing of children,” he said, adding that there is no reason why all parties on both sides of the Houses can’t work together to progress the bill together. 

EU trade agreement with Israel 

In addition, Harris also outlined that he wants other EU countries to follow Ireland’s lead and call for the trade agreement between the EU and Israel to be reviewed. 

“I want to see if a number of countries now are willing to restate what Ireland has already stated. And of course, Ireland has been engaging on the context of the letter [to von Der Leyen] for a significant period of time. But being very honest, it’s been a minority view of the European Union… Ireland has been clear, Spain has been clear, the Netherlands is clear today.

“I hope other countries that are like-minded in relation to the situation, like Slovenia, like Luxembourg, may also be willing to give consideration to this,” he said.

Harris said he intends to continue to work at a European level, stating that there is no doubt the best way to apply the maximum pressure on Israel is through the European Union Act,” he said.

“So while we’re going to look at what we can do here at the national level, in parallel, we have to keep working at a European level. It’s the most clear cut from a legal point of view in terms of trade being an EU competency, and it’s the most impactful, in terms of the scale of the European Union and the Association Agreement between the EU and Israel,” said the Tánaiste. 

The EU/Israel Association Agreement, which came into force in 2000, provides the legal and institutional framework for political dialogue and economic cooperation between the EU and Israel.

Article 2 of the agreement states that it “shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles”. 

Former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez sent a letter to von der Leyen in February last year asking that the Commission undertakes an “urgent review of whether Israel is complying with its obligations”. No response followed. 

Harris said today that what the Israeli government announced this week in relation to Gaza “is sickening, is despicable, is a clear breach of international law, and does, of course, constitute a war crime”.