President Michael D Higgins will appeal to world leaders to fix a “broken” world on Thursday evening, as the one-day visit of French president Emmanuel Macron to Ireland ends.
Mr Higgins will deliver his message during a dinner at Aras an Uachtarain for the French president.
“We are at a time of crisis. We live in a world broken by conflict and neglected climate justice issues,” Mr Higgins will say on Thursday.
“While Europe has, for many decades, been a leader in championing the rights of refugees, the rise of populist political ideologies that are founded on fear, division and exclusion – with the excluded being abandoned to become the prey of xenophobes and racists – presents a major threat to European solidarity,” Mr Higgins’s speech reads.
In a speech that repeatedly references the shared links between Ireland and France, Mr Higgins will say that the future of the European Union had been challenged by the fall-out from the post-2008 recession, the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit.
“We Europeans are challenged to define, through deliberation, the outlines of the Union that we now seek. Such deliberation must be in the context of a sufficiently wide debate, including on the forms of political economy, that can address new and existing internal and external challenges.”
Mr Macron was welcomed by Mr Higgins to Aras an Uachtarain on Thursday morning, before holding a meeting with Taoiseach Micheal Martin in which corporation tax, Brexit and the situation in Afghanistan were discussed.
“It is now more than half a century since President Charles De Gaulle famously visited counties Kerry, Galway and Tipperary,” Mr Higgins will tell the French president.
President De Gaulle and President De Valera walked in the gardens outside this room
“Just a short distance from where we are now, President De Gaulle and President De Valera walked in the gardens outside this room, and reflected on the many challenges of their time. Then, as now, they were undoubtedly drawn together by the deep and warm friendship between France and Ireland.”
The speech references the Irish artists and writers – Samuel Beckett, Eileen Gray and James Joyce – who had made their home in France.
Ulysses sightseeing
On Thursday, Mr Macron paid a visit to Sweny’s pharmacy, the Dublin chemist shop featured in Mr Joyce’s novel Ulysses, during his first official visit to Ireland.
He also visited Trinity College Dublin, where Mr Beckett was once a student.
Mr Higgins will say that Europe needs to look towards a future that delivers for citizens.
“This message must be taken to the heart of Europe. The instrument that is the state must also be redefined, reconstituted in terms of itself and its partnerships by its citizens if societies are to be transformed for the benefit of all of the citizenry,” Mr Higgins will say.
We must take instruction from the tragedy that is the Covid pandemic
Advertisement
“This Europe we seek must be one in which hateful squabbles are replaced with openness, inclusivity, cohesion, solidarity – not just for our benefit in the European Union, but for future generations whom we would wish to inhabit a peaceful, harmonious world that is supported by a sustainable vision of economy and society, enriched by a diversity of cultures.
“As leaders in the European Union, we must take instruction from the tragedy that is the Covid pandemic in terms of our shared preparedness.
“We must build on the solidarity that has been demonstrated by the peoples of the Union, reflecting their response in how we act as Member States.
“Similar to the financial crash of over a decade ago, the pandemic has exposed weaknesses within the Union, demonstrating the inherent dangers of a policy of retreating behind borders – a zero-sum game,” Mr Higgins will tell the French president.
