In 2019, the then-deputy prime minister of Ireland Simon Coveney spoke at the UN Human Rights Council, where he underlined Ireland’s commitment to defending human rights – which he said was strengthened by his country’s membership of the EU. As he told the summit, freedom and justice are:
woven through our foreign policy, through our bilateral engagement and through our determined and committed membership of the European Union.
The speech came in the midst of the Brexit negotiations, where Ireland were keen to be portrayed as noble victims of the Brexit vote, pitted against an isolationist, knuckle-dragging UK.
How times change. Coveney, now Ireland’s foreign minister, has just gotten back from a trip to China, as part of a European delegation of foreign ministers from Poland, Hungary and Serbia.
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