For the second half of this year the Government will be steering – not setting – the political agenda of the European Union in a role that involves intense negotiations that will put Irish Ministers in awkward positions on occasion.
A push by European countries to become more independent of Washington, take a tougher stance towards US tech giants, massively increase military spending and crack on with the EU-Mercosur trade deal all have the potential to cause difficulty for the Government.
Taking over the rotating Council of the European Union presidency means Ireland will, in effect, have to represent the view of the 27 national governments in Brussels negotiations, even if that runs against the Government’s own position. Ireland will assume the EU presidency from July until the end of the year.
That will involve Ministers and senior Irish diplomats chairing EU-level meetings, to nudge the union’s member states towards common positions on everything from trade and foreign affairs to migration, energy or climate policy.
It will probably be discussions about the Trump administration and Europe’s regulation of tech multinationals that have the potential to cause the most trouble for Dublin.
Tech executives seem to view Ireland’s coming stint holding the presidency as an opportunity for their “friend” inside the EU tent to roll back Brussels rules and regulations they don’t like.
They may be disappointed.
Attitudes towards Big Tech in other European states are hardening. US president Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland, a territory in the kingdom of Denmark, has also really soured transatlantic relations.
On defence Ireland has made it clear its policy of military neutrality does not preclude it from closer co-operation with other EU states, providing aid to Ukraine or joining common projects to buy equipment in bulk.
The central role the Government will need to play pushing along EU plans to hike military spending and expand Europe’s defence industry will still surely draw criticism from the Opposition and pro-neutrality campaigners.
A confidential draft of the Government’s agenda for the EU role, seen by The Irish Times, shows how Ireland intends to manage some of those trickier political debates.
The Government will support the EU in developing a “stronger and more flexible European defence industry” and promote “mutually beneficial” co-operation between the EU and Nato, the paper said.
The early draft setting out the Government’s priorities talks about using the position to mend relations between Brussels and Washington, to “build a more ambitious and mutually beneficial” trading relationship.
The internal document said a tariff deal agreed last year, sucking up 15 per cent import duties on EU goods sold into the US, could be improved. The paper pointed to possible future work together on “supply chains and critical sectors and technologies”.
Ireland is economically the most exposed if the EU-US relationship takes another dive. Irish officials dread the prospect of having to manage a Greenland crisis, or something similar, during their period in the EU hot seat.
A defining aspect of the presidency would be making sure Ukraine “has what it needs to defend itself” against Russia, the Government paper states.
Striking a deal to revise the union’s strict data-protection rules, new AI regulations and other digital laws may fall to the Irish presidency. A European Commission-led drive to simplify existing rules was about “better regulation, not deregulation”, the draft document said.
Government sway over the direction debates turn will have limits. The council presidency is one cog in the complex EU policymaking machine.
Irish officials are wary of a recent French-led protectionist push, fearing attempts to protect key European industries may go too far and cut US firms from parts of the EU market.
The internal document states that Ireland believed the EU should position itself as “a confident, outward-looking economic actor in a volatile global environment”.