{"id":496882,"date":"2025-10-13T19:16:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/496882\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T19:16:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:16:14","slug":"eastern-eu-states-in-fear-of-russian-invasion-claims-irish-ambassador-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/496882\/","title":{"rendered":"Eastern EU states \u2018in fear of Russian invasion\u2019, claims Irish Ambassador \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland\u2019s fellow European Union <\/a>states in eastern Europe, including Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, live \u201cin real fear\u201d of Russia and \u201cgenuinely\u201d fear invasion, Ireland\u2019s Ambassador to London Martin Fraser has told Irish and British politicians.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly <\/a>in Surrey, Mr Fraser said: \u201cI don\u2019t think it does Ireland any harm to sometimes think about that because we are in a really febrile place on the Continent of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is \u201can absolute imperative\u201d to increase the European Union\u2019s defensive capacity with cybersecurity, conventional security, defence threats, said Mr Fraser, the former secretary general at the Department of the Taoiseach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not distant problems, these are very, very, very imminent problems,\u201d said Mr Fraser, adding that eastern European diplomatic colleagues frequently express their profound concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd none of this is really in Ireland\u2019s interests. It\u2019s the breakdown of globalisation or increase of military activity or election interference, whatever it might be,\u201d he told the body.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see a lot of turbulence outside these islands, particularly in our EU member states, our eastern member states … in places like Georgia, Moldova andeven closer to home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Mr Fraser said the Common Travel Area \u2013 which offers travel and residency rights to Irish and British citizens to live and work in each other\u2019s countries \u2013 has survived 100 years, including the challenges of Brexit.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we will keep it into the future,\u201d he said, noting the British Government has recently announced plans to introduce controversial digital ID cards for all British citizens and those living legally in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

British Minister of State for culture Ian Murray has already come to Dublin to meet Irish counterparts and to Belfast for discussions about the plans: \u201cThey did speak to us around the time of that announcement. They have engaged with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he warned that the political temperature in the UK on immigration must be understood in the Republic. \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to overemphasise the pressure that migration is putting on British politics at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minister of State for International Development Neale Richmond <\/a>said there is \u201csomething awry\u201d given that just 1 per cent of people in the Republic place security as their highest issue of importance, when this is the most important for many EU states in eastern Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for those of us coming from the Irish side to make sure that we make it quite clear we do have friends, we do have allies. And we think those alliances are important,\u201d he told the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ireland will spend \u20ac1.35 billion on defence this year, clearing the way for \u201csignificant progress\u201d on military radar and protection of undersea cables, he said. <\/p>\n

The British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, established in 1990, includes members of the Oireachtas, the Scottish parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the senedd Cymru in Wales, the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey. <\/p>\n

Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell criticised the lack of Irish defence spending, noting that the State was namechecked in the House of Lords recently for \u201cfreeloading\u201d on the security provided by others.<\/p>\n

Despite increases in recent years, the Republic will spend little more than \u20ac1 billion this year, while Finland, with a similar population and a similar economy, is spending more than \u20ac6 billion on defence, he said.<\/p>\n

However, Mr Richmond said framing the defence and security debate in the Republic around charges that the State is \u201cfreeloading\u201d will not persuade anyone of the need to consider change. \u201cThat will just get people\u2019s backs up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Dublin Airport immigration controls, which require British citizens to produce a passport in contravention of the Common Travel Area, were criticised by Labour peer Alf Dubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s fellow European Union states in eastern Europe, including Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, live \u201cin real fear\u201d of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[110687,13515,1699,1144,332],"class_list":{"0":"post-496882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-british-irish-council","9":"tag-common-ground","10":"tag-european-union","11":"tag-northern-ireland","12":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}