 Good afternoon and you're very welcome. I'm Alex White, Director General of the Institute of International European Affairs and delighted to have you with us for this event this afternoon. When we're going to be joined by Emer Finnegan, Director General of the Council Legal Service and the Legal Council of the European Council. So there's an S in one of those words and a C in the other. We're really delighted to have you with us this afternoon. Emer will speak to us about 20 minutes or so and then we'll have a Q&A. Sometimes when people are asked to try to describe the European Union, you know, describe the union. And I think one answer or not bad answer is it is it is really a compendium of rules and laws that kind of it's one way of actually defining the European Union. It might be a little bit turgid and a lot of people might think it's a bit minimalist, but in many ways that is that is what the European Union is. And Emer Finnegan, our guest this afternoon sits very much at the top, or at least shall we say at the center of all of the complex activity that goes on around lawmaking and law enforcement in the broadest sense in the European Union. Emer, as I said, is DG of the Council Legal Service and she's also the legal counsel of the European Council. She's the first Irish national and the second woman to hold those posts. Emer has worked in the Council Legal Service since 1999 was made a director in 2015. As such, or in that role, she was responsible for legal issues in the competitiveness environment and transport telecom and energy councils, which I was privileged to be a member myself at one point. And for legal issues concerning employment, social affairs, education, agriculture and fisheries really the whole kind of gamut of the competencies of the European Union as we're familiar with it. And Miss Finnegan was closely involved with the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement and the trade and cooperation agreement with the United Kingdom. She's extensive experience representing the Council before the Court of Justice of the European Union. So we're really delighted to have you. It's a webinar this afternoon. So you can, if you have you're watching us and delighted that so many of you are, you will have an opportunity to put in a question using the Q&A function there that everybody is so familiar with now. And there are some of the housekeeping points that I tend to forget at this point, but one most important one is that if you're asking a question, try and keep it pithy and clear so we can read it before we actually smother it and say who you are. Give us your designation if you have one. And please, if you're going to ask a question. But without any further delay, Emer Finnegan, you're really welcome to the IAEA this afternoon and the floor is yours. Well, thank you very much, Alex. And thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. I regularly attend IEA meetings in Brussels. So it's nice to attend a Dublin event for a change, although it would have been even nicer to attend in person so I'll try and see if I can do that the next time. So I was asked to speak on a really interesting and a complex topic in my address for my address to you today about how European law has been used to address Russia's invasion of Ukraine and how the legal service assists the two institutions that it serves the Council and the European Council in responding to other major political challenges for the EU. So, so indeed I'll make some remarks and then obviously, as you said, happy to take some some questions from the listeners. And so, as you know, of course, tragically it's been more than a year and a half now since Russia since Russia began its full scale invasion of Ukraine in the morning of the 24th of February 2022. I think we all remember that moment we know where we were when that happened and then use hit the screens. And on the very same day the European Council met, and it contend in the strongest possible terms, the Russian for iterations unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against Ukraine. And it has remained seized of the matter ever since, most recently in the statement that was issued at the informal meeting of the members of the European Council, which was in Granada last week, which I attended. And there the leaders reaffirmed that the Union will continue to support Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes. And throughout the conflict, the European Council has sent clear consistent and and coordinated messages in support of Ukraine. The members of the European Council, as you know, of course, that's the the heads of state or government plus the president of the Commission and the president of the European Council. They have to find the general political directions of Union policy on this terrible conflict in accordance with with the role of the European Council. And it's going to provide some some further guidance in its next formal meeting in Brussels, which is due a little bit later this month. In my remarks today, I thought I would, however, concentrate a little bit more on the legal developments that have occurred in the in the other institution, which we assist the Council of the EU, which I see is often still informally called the Council of Ministers. It's not its official name anymore, but it's still quite descriptive. I think this the the Union has has shown and the Council has shown that it can face this enormous political challenge with with creativity and with determination. And this has been demonstrated by the many legal acts which the Council has adopted. In many cases, the Council has had the capacity to act alone. But in certain cases, it also acts obviously as co-legislator with the European Parliament. Now, obviously, acting in the face of political challenges poses legal challenges, because it's often in times of crisis that the Union has to take unprecedented action. And the Union has to find some way of rising to these new challenges. And this in turn is challenging for for we lawyers, because of course we rely on on precedent and we rely on our established legal legal frameworks. But it's particularly at those moments that I think that our work is very important and political priorities require us to innovate. But we always do that while recalling our basic values. And in particular there I'm thinking of the rule of law, which as you know is one of the values on which the Union is founded. And this for us means that all action taken even in times of crisis respects the principles of principle of legality. We must respect the treaties, the general principles of law, fundamental rights as protected under the Charter and the applicable procedural requirements so that acts are validly adopted and can withstand challenge before the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg. We are an independent service I think it's important to stress that and we act in complete impartiality. We are aware of the political context in which we operate, but we as the as the legal service are concerned only with the legality of the acts adopted, and with the drafting quality of those acts. Now many of the individual individual measures that have been taken in response to the invasion have made headlines and some of them are indeed very creative. I'll start by just mentioning briefly the the vast scope of union law that has been affected in our response to to this tragic invasion. We have of course action directed against Russia itself. And in particular the succession successive sanctions packages are restrictive measures regime, which has been very active. And I'll say a bit more about that in a moment. Our action also involves a range of measures to support Ukraine. As well as measures to protect our economy from the impact of the war. In particular through the adoption by the Council of a series of acts to respond to the energy crisis, which was caused by the EU's dependence on fossil fuels. And the the invasion has also on a different note changed the EU's approach to Ukraine's desire to exceed to the European Union. And so I'll also come back to the to the energy acts in a moment and to one or two other points. But still more generally speaking, we have used, for example, our traditional trade instruments in order to support Ukraine by facilitating its access to our internal market through the adoption of a range of autonomous trade measures so as to eliminate tariffs on their imports into the EU. And this is in addition to the market access, which was already being granted through the EU's association agreement with Ukraine, which includes already a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement. We are providing macro financial assistance. Those are acts adopted in co decision in order to support the economy of Ukraine and other assistance to facilitate its development. Ukraine had already started to participate in various union programs under Erasmus plus, for example, the union was already support providing support for the schooling of Ukrainian children and participation in the the sectoral programs generally has been stepped up since the war began. And the union is providing assistance specifically to support Ukraine's armed forces. And I'll say a little bit more about that in a moment. And now obviously as you know very well in in Ireland and it's the case for all member states. And the member states have welcomed a very large number of Ukrainians fleeing the war as well. And it's worth noting that there the council put in place and in fact activated for the very first time, the mechanism concerning temporary protection, which, which stems from the basic act, the temporary protection directive which was adopted back in 2001. And that drew on the experiences concerning persons displaced by the conflict in former Yugoslavia. And so, in that that crisis way back then led us to put a framework in place, which is what we have drawn on now. And, and in fact the council is just on the point of deciding that the specific measures for displaced persons are going to be extended until March 2025 to give some some predictability to the situation. And yes, they set out minimum standards for harmonized rights throughout the union, including residency rights, the possibility to work, access to suitable accommodation, access to education for the young people, and the necessary social welfare assistance, and medical assistance and so on, and guardianship for unaccompanied minors of which there are some as well. And so Ireland, it has has opted into this measure in accordance with its, its own rules on pursuant to the protocol on the, the area of freedom, security and justice. So the, the emergency toolbox of the union is very wide and large. And as I said, there are many financing tools available. There are specific emergency measures under primary law like the energy measures that I will mention, and different competences of the union are involved. There's extensive scope for common action so that we can address the crisis in a united fashion, but there is also flexibility in there where necessary for individual member states. So common action really runs across the entire spectrum of what, what used to be the three pillars. So the traditional union activity which used to be community activity. The old second pillar which was CFSP, and, and the old third pillar, Justice and Home Affairs, and in fact all of these areas are engaged by the, by the union and its response to the invasion. There are a few words about military assistance now. The Council has put in place some concrete support to the Ukrainian war effort by the provision of assistance to the Ukrainian armed forces. As, as you know, I've seen the, the debates at home. There has been a lot of activity by the union in matters linked to defense and there are some interesting discussions underway in, in Ireland in relation to that. Under the European Peace Facility, which is a council act, it has shown its determination to play a part in providing military equipment to Ukraine. Under the treaties, military and defense expenditure cannot be financed under the union budget. So this is a fund which relies on contributions by member states. And it's a defense policy measure, of course, adopted by the council, and under the treaty on European Union, the specific character of the security and defense policy of certain member states is respected. In particular, we have a possibility under the treaty for member states to constructively abstain as it, as it's known when CFSP measures are adopted. This means that they are not obliged to apply the measure, but they accept that the decision commits the union, and they must refrain from action which would conflict with the measure. The three member states, including Ireland, avail of this possibility when financing for military equipment for lethal purposes is, is agreed. And instead, those member states voluntarily make a contribution in respect of non-lethal assistance. So in this way, the union has been able to move forward in full respect of the national position of member states, national defense policies, in some cases constitutional requirements, so that the sovereign choices of member states are fully respected in this very sensitive area. I thought I'd say a few words as well about restrictive measures, as I mentioned already, are otherwise known as our sanctions regime. And this has been an area in which we have adopted a very large number of measures in the past year and a half since the Russian invasion. The council had already imposed certain restrictive measures on Russia after the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula, but the scope and importance of the measures has been greatly extended since 2022. There are sectoral measures and these are a wide range of measures. I'll come back to a few of them in a moment, but essentially many of them are designed to weaken Russia's economic base, deprive it of critical technologies and markets, and hopefully significantly curtail its ability to wage war. We've also adopted sanctions against Belarus because of its involvement and support to the Russians, and we've adopted measures against Iran because of its manufacture and supply of drones to the Russians in the conflict. So sectoral measures involve, for example, financial measures, restrictions on Russia's access to capital and financial markets, and a ban on using SWIFT for 10 Russian banks. We have transport measures, the airspace of the EU is closed to Russia. There are road restrictions as well, maritime transport restrictions. We have export bans of certain goods and we have import bans of certain goods and it's quite an eclectic mix. We have a lot of products there, everything from steel and wood, gold and jewellery, seafood, basically it's a collection of import bans which are designed to cause economic harm. And we even have a ban on the provision of certain services. And there are measures directed against individuals and that involves typically an asset freeze for assets which are within EU jurisdiction and a denial of entry into the EU. So these involve members of the government, others engaged in the war and oligarchs who support the Russian regime financially. And of course, ensuring the legality of all of these measures, and in particular for the individual listings, the respect for the fundamental rights of the persons listed is a big challenge for the legal service and we're very engaged in litigation in Luxembourg on this. We have nearly 100 cases concerning these regimes. The council provides reasons for the listings and it ensures that the rights of defence of these persons are respected by giving them an opportunity to comment once they have been listed. Before that, of course, you need the surprise effect and taking those comments into account. So even when we act under extreme time pressure, some of these measures were taken within a couple of days of the invasion and we've continued ever since with additional packages. We still take a lot of care to ensure that the measures are liable to pass muster before the impartial judges in Luxembourg and so we're always vigilant in advising the council in the decisions that it takes in this respect. One interesting creative measure which we had not taken before concerned ban on broadcasting activities of certain certain Russian media outlets, including Russia today. And that was motivated by the propaganda campaign carried out by Russia justifying its military aggression and targeting civil society in the EU. And we've already had a judgment in the first of those cases because several media outlets have challenged that listing. And so far the general court has has upheld the legality of the council's action. It has referred to the fact that in the field of common foreign and security policy, the council has a great deal of latitude and defining the objective of its restrictive measures. And it considered that the council could legitimately consider that these measures were necessary. And at the same time, it examined very carefully the evidence provided in support of the listing, because it wanted to ensure that the fundamental right to the freedom of expression had been respected in so far as necessary and proportionate. And the court concluded that we had done so that that is on appeal so we will wait to see what the Court of Justice says on the appeal. Then perhaps a few words on energy dependency. There, again, it's an example of a certain amount of creativity on the part of the council, because we have made quite extensive use of emergency powers which exist in the treaty under article 122 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union. And this gives the power to adopt alone measures appropriate to the economic situation, which is quite broad in a spirit of solidarity. And these measures must be economic in nature. And there we have also been careful that the council uses this wide power responsibly because the use of that particular mechanism, which allows us to act very quickly shouldn't undermine or circumvent the use of the other legal basis which exist for action in normal times. So the situation has to be urgent, it has to be exceptional, and the measure should be temporary essentially. And so we adopted several measures concerning demand reduction for gas, solidarity, better coordination of gas purchases, we addressed high energy prices. We laid down a framework to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy, and we established a mechanism to protect union citizens and the economy against the extremely high prices which we saw for energy last year. So those measures have proved relatively effective. And now we are in the process of considering whether it is necessary and justified to prolong some or all of them, and taking into account the constraints that I have just mentioned. So just to sum up these introductory remarks. As I say, crisis doesn't turn the union into a purely political organization. We always try to ensure the full respect of the rule of law when faced with such an emergency situation. And that's why our work is very important. And creative to certain respects while staying always within the boundaries set by the treaties and our other rules and procedures. That's what makes it challenging but also absolutely fascinating and that's our life on a daily basis in respect to this area of our activity. Thank you very much.