Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
Tadgh McNally reports from the European Parliament in Brussels:
GREEN PARTY MEP Grace O’Sullivan has hit out at an EU agreement to buy gas from Israel, saying that the bloc “must not swap the gas of one occupying state for another”.
The new agreement, which was proposed to move away from using Russian fossil fuels due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, was first reached last week with a Memorandum of Understanding being signed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“We must not swap the gas of one occupying state for another,” said O’Sullivan in a statement.
“On one hand the EU comes out with a statement every other month deploring illegal settlement construction and human rights abuses against Palestinians, including the killing of journalists, and on the other hand we are sending them billions of euros for new gas imports.”
“Just last month Israel refused to allow the European Parliament’s elected representatives, including myself, to enter Gaza where over two million people are denied basic rights by Israeli authorities. Why are we rewarding this behaviour?”
Recently, O’Sullivan and a group of other MEPs were refused entry to Gaza as part of an EU delegation to Palestine.
“Any new gas deals will also lock us into fossil fuel dependency for years to come.”
Speaking to reporters earlier today in Brussels, O’Sullivan said that the Greens overall were unhappy with the deal and that they were writing to the Commission to “ensure that the occupied territories” are not used to supply gas to the EU.
“The Greens are unhappy with that situation. To be clear, we need to be sure that criteria in terms of human rights and that is applied to systems like Israel,” said O’Sullivan.
“We will be dealing with the Commission to ensure that whatever the terms are, that there’s clauses that provide this recognition of the human rights conditions but also, that if gas is coming from Israel, that there’s a cap on it.”
Under the deal, natural gas would be pumped from Israel to Egypt before being turned into Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to then be transported by sea to European countries.
Announcing the deal, von der Leyen said that EU dependence on Russian fuel was exposed due to the war in Ukraine.
“Russia’s war against Ukraine has exposed our European dependency on Russian fossil fuels, and we want to get rid of this dependency,” said von der Leyen.
Additional reporting by AFP
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
It’s almost like a Simpsons skit.
“We can’t buy fuel from a tyrannical occupier because it’s immoral. Lets buy it from Israel instead!”
@Rochelle: Greens are in fantasy land they will be history come next election until the economy improves and then they will win a couple of seats again.
@Joe Johnson: Is this a cut and paste post!!!!! Anytime a green td, senator, mep councillor does anything we get these smartaleckey unoriginal comments that contribute nothing . I’m surprised that you haven’t shoed in a comment about green taxes or Eamos bike. The Greens are polling about same as PBP, Aontu, Socdems, Labour and are very popular with younger voters. They also have some very smart TDs, senators and councillors so I wouldn’t write them off yet. Even if they didn’t exist , ALL PARTIES will have to face up to the climate agenda/challenge… it is the biggest challenge facing us into the future and those who it will affect the most, younger people, are very clued into this and will be voting based on parties attitude to climate.
@Rochelle: a good reason to push for energy independence. It means we don’t have to make these type of choices. In Europe energy independence would have to be achieved by more investment in non-fossil fuel energy sources.
@Rochelle: We should only buy fuel from the USA, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. Countries with ethical governments.
@Jerriko17:
The Greens are polling about same as PBP, Aontu, Socdems, Labour and are very popular with younger voters.
Polling the same as Labour and Aontu ect. doesent exactly equate to being very popular with younger voters.
SF are mopping them up in increasing numbers election on election while the small parties remain almost static or like the Greens, going in reverse at the polls.
The Greens stupidly fell into the same trap Labour did by going into government with FF/FG.
They are now the whipping boy for increasingly unpopular raft of environmental taxes brought in by the other two due to having no real alternative way of raising more taxation without suffering in the next election.
Honestly, did the Greens think they would go into government and make a difference with only a handful of TD’s and no real credible threat of going against the other two in a no confidance motion?
Still no sign of a deposit scheme on drinks containers, no recycling bins on our streets, nowhere near enough EV charging points in car parks and on street parking, no pressure on Coillte to give up on monoculture, miserable resourcing, detection and prosecution rates for littering and illegal dumping….it’s a long long list of failures with no real successes while the two main parties get another “Labour” to feed to the angry public at the next election.
Watch as the Greens get the knife further twisted and lambasted by FF/FG in the next election debates over their poor record of any meaningful change other than raising taxes.
@Joe Johnson: Sorry, it’s you who is in a fantasyland if you don’t accept the science on global heating or the need to switch quickly to renewable energy.
The greens seem to think we live in a children’s fairy tale. They’ve yet to be mugged by reality.
@Jerriko17: A person can be pro climate action and anti Green Party.
@Gavin Conran: Totally agree…. The more parties adopt their policies the better. In fact some of the proposed policies put forward in the last election were more radical than the Greens!!!!
@Damon16: Well there is so called political reality and there is scientific reality – which you definitely cannot do bargains with.
So the EU will support one of the world’s only remaining apartheid states just to give the finger to Russia? Do they have no shame?
@Rory Jennequin: Trouble is there are NO good places to buy oil and gas from. It is not a case of choosing between saints and sinners but which sins we can live with. The only strongly moral answer is to do wirhout.
We’re not that moral.!
There is a way in which Russia is very different to the Middle East countries. Russia has brought war to Europe where we hoped we had banished it forever, the Middle East hasn’t stopped being a war zone in written history.
We might dream of peace in the Middle East but we had it in Europe and Russia has broken it.
Another Irish MEP living in an alternate universe.
@Michael Clair: Nano Nano
@Michael Clair: No, not this one, top drawer Grace O’ Sullivan
This is where populist parish pump politics and short sightedness gets us.
We should be almost energy independent. We had the resources.
What a mess.
I don’t know what the answers are but she’s not wrong. Just because we don’t like what we hear doesn’t mean we don’t need to hear it.
@Jen Mc: She’s absolutely correct.
I think she may be a little confused by the urgency of the situation that Europe is in, presently we have very few options, stuck between a rock and a hard place
@kevin mc cormack: just like the Palestinian
@kevin mc cormack: I may not be the the most ‘woke’, ‘LGBT++ ally’ or ‘neo feminist’ person but should we question buying oil from the Saudi govt and funding them?
I suppose therefore that she supports the development of our own gas and oil field in Cork. Apologies its a Green Minister called Eamon Ryan who is blocking it
Let her freeze her bollix off in the winter then… oh wait she’s an overpaid TD
@Geoff Bateman: so give the money to an apartheid state instead? Yea, that’s a great example…
@Rory Jennequin: Where would you suggest they source from?
@Gavin Conran: Russia, sure why not, do we have a league now of which bad state, apartheid state, illegal annexations gets big eu contracts .
@Geoff Bateman: if we’re worried about freezing out bollix off over the winter why not continue to buy russian oil and gas. Russia is no more evil than Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Not to worry. We’ll heat our houses with magic pixie dust or crappy heat pumps….slow clap
@Christopher Byrne: so what your saying you’ll turn a blind eye to Israels land grabbing and killing of its neighboring state because you need to heat your house. Good man
The greens… cabbages more like their only green at election time ..then it’s green lite
Put all the greens on minimum wage and see how they choose to heat their homes? They’re gonna need an awful lotta luck in the next round!
@Edward Reid: Read something about Grace O’Sullivans life. She has direct experience of fuel poverty.
Greens are an absolute joke. Idealism over pragmatism they are rudderless in times of such as these, walking us into a worse crisis. We could be suffient in this country we have gas, oil, wind, turf and plenty of water for hydro. And yet they over nothing around infrstruction to boost all of these. Let’s not kid around, we need all of these options to provide sustainable energy and heating. 3 gas powered stations in Dublin now have to be brought in for this winter using imported gas that will cost a fortune.
@Baronvoncass: your fossil fuel lobby paymasters won’t appreciate your bad spelling.
To paraphrase Marie Antoinette Let them burn turf.
@Richard More-O’Ferrall: That’s illegal now boy… unless it’s your own turf.
Ireland should stop buying gas, petrol, diesel, etc from everyone. We can all use coal, wood and peat. Sad the Greens do not realise how irrelevant they are.
Probably stu pid comments but don’t we have gas out in the sea?
@Nicholas O’Halloran: Yes & oil for that matter unfortunately those in charge let the big corporations take it just like taking candy from a baby! Something needs to be done about it it’s absolutely madness!
@Colette Kearns: So why don’t we stop the international oil giants taking our fossil fuels, we could after all set our armed forces on them, couldn’t we?
If Eamon Ryan could get his bike brought down to Limerick by State car to cycled around the city to show his greeness while he went down by train, then you might as well buy our oil from Russia.
The real difficulty is that we are all complicit with Israel, Russia, UAR, big oil, big pharma, big tech but we just point our finger in any direction but at ourselves and keep the pot boiling.
Nuclear energy ís the way to go. Too much pollution in making turbines, wave generators and solar panels, then having to decommission them all.
@Liam Dempsey: And of course there are no problems about decommissioning nuclear power stations unless you happen to open a newspaper and start reading about the problem, that is.
BTW. Where dose the pay and conditions for public servants come from, who writes them. Even when the country was broke in 2008/9 ministers and public servants got there pay, conditions and pensions while workers who paid into their pensions left empty handed.
They will be letting the air out of SUV’s next like the channel 4 report.
I run from anything from the greens anymore .. sickners
Yet she does not seem to have any issue with gas being purchased from Egypt.
When antisemitism trumps any other argument…
Germany are reliant on Russian gas so need another sourse. They’ll not give a damn where it comes from or what an Irish MEP thinks as long as thier citizens are warm for the winter.
The first sentence says it all.
Where’s our gas, God know the conflict bringing it ashore. Plenty out there, go and get it, or sold to who I wonder
Well said Grace.
have your say