The government must have had legal advice back when those measures were being adopted – that were ultimately found to be in breach of EU law – that this raised a very real question around EU law,” he told PA. “The compatibility of the Irish tax measures were much more likely to be found to breach the EU law than the Occupied Territories Bill, yet the government ploughed ahead anyway.
Irish government urged to enact trade ban with Israeli settlements within a year The Irish government is being urged to enact a bill banning trade with illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land within the next 12 months.
“There was no real principle to opposition, and we ended up in this sort of three or four year kind of legal detente, where we made the argument not just ourselves, but with the support of some of the most eminent and prominent legal scholars in the world – people who were involved in drafting the Treaty of Accession to the EU, former attorney generals in Ireland – really, really heavy hitters making the case that, yes, a banner of this nature would be permitted under EU law precisely because the trade that we’re talking about, the products or services we’re talking about, are the proceeds of crime.
The Senator’s Occupied Territories Bill bans trade of both goods and services with all illegally occupied territories, including illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.
Campaigners involved in the drafting of the bill said they look forward to any legal challenge taken against it once it is enacted, as they feel strongly about the legality of a trade ban with illegal settlements.
