Dublin says a renewed tensions in the Middle East provide legal grounds to re-examine the bill, which has stalled for six years over concerns it breaches EU law.
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00:00What is Ireland's Occupied Territories Bill and why could it be revived now?
00:11Next week, Ireland's Attorney General is expected to advise the government to reopen a 2018
00:18bill that would ban trade between Ireland and Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian
00:25Territories. The bill has been stalled for years over concerns it breached EU trade law,
00:31but Dublin says that a July advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice provides
00:38legal grounds to re-examine the bill. Its impact would be economically minute, affecting
00:44an estimated 1 million euros in trade annually, but politically it would be unprecedented
00:51and would see Ireland pressing on without EU support.
00:55The ICJ advisory opinion is a game changer in terms of the context because it now places
01:00an obligation on countries to do all they can to help end the unlawful illegal occupation.
01:07I'd like to do that at an EU level, but regardless of the EU position I'm not going to ignore
01:12the obligation that I believe now exists on Ireland to act.
01:15Now trade is a EU competence and in the European Union settlement goods are exempt from preferential
01:21tariffs and must be clearly labelled, but are not banned. Both Ireland and Spain are
01:27pressing Brussels to restrict trade with Israel as a means of exerting diplomatic pressure
01:32on Netanyahu's government. The EU is Israel's biggest trade partner accounting for around
01:3829% of trade in goods. Sources tell us that Israel has agreed to hold a special council
01:45to discuss the trade deal, but on the condition that those discussions do not address the
01:50situation in Gaza.