{"id":520837,"date":"2026-06-27T07:14:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T07:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/520837\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T07:14:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T07:14:16","slug":"irelands-eu-presidency-what-it-is-and-why-it-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/520837\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland’s EU Presidency: What it is and why it matters"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday, the eyes of Europe will fall on Ireland as the State assumes the Presidency of the European Union.<\/p>\n

It will be the eighth time Ireland has taken on the role since we joined the EEC in 1973.<\/p>\n

However, compared to previous presidencies, given the cycle of crises the EU has confronted in recent years, the stakes could not be higher: The sheer volume of legislation that the Government will be expected to steer through the EU\u2019s law-making machinery could not be greater.<\/p>\n

In the first of two articles RT\u00c9\u2019s Europe Editor Tony Connelly explains the rotating role of the EU presidency, how Ireland has prepared for it and what challenges the State will face.<\/p>\n

Back in 2013, the EU Presidency fell on a country still badly bruised by the banking crisis and subsequent EU\/IMF bailout.<\/p>\n

The spend was around \u20ac64 million, just over half the amount spent in 2004 (diplomats called it the “tap water Presidency”).<\/p>\n

Since 2013, Ireland has been a net contributor to the EU and the country is one of the wealthiest member states according to GDP – the Presidency today will cost anything up to \u20ac400m, once security costs have been taken into account.<\/p>\n

With the sequence of crises that has shaken the EU – from terrorism, migration, and Brexit to Covid, Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and the return of Donald Trump – member states have granted the EU deeper and more far-reaching powers.<\/p>\n

“The EU is a much bigger beast than it was in 2013”, says one Irish diplomat. “It’s a different world. There are more competencies and they are more complicated.”<\/p>\n

Furthermore, the credit shown to Ireland for its recovery from the banking crisis, perhaps reflected in the unwavering support shown by the EU during the Brexit negotiations, has been tempered by a more critical view of the country\u2019s reliance of US tech corporations and the critique that it has not paid its way in terms of securing its (and the EU\u2019s) western maritime border.<\/p>\n

For this and other reasons, the stakes for the next six months could not be higher.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nAnglo Irish Bank – Nationalised in 2009<\/p>\n

But what exactly is the Presidency for?<\/p>\n

In Ireland, there will be the operational challenge of hosting hundreds of meetings; in Brussels, Ireland will be expected to negotiate and close EU legislation.<\/p>\n

The Government has set out four objectives:<\/p>\n

Running a successful Presidency in Brussels: EU member states and the European Parliament are mainly co-legislators, so when the European Commission proposes legislation Ireland\u2019s role will be to negotiate a common position among 27 member states.
\nRunning a successful operation in Ireland: Hosting 280 meetings is an opportunity to showcase the country\u2019s soft power and positive attitude to the EU and foreign visitors.
\nAsserting the Government\u2019s policy priorities: This is about taking the current EU agenda and steering it in a direction the Government thinks will best suit member states (including Ireland) and the European project.
\nPublic outreach: The Coalition is determined that the Presidency is about more than fleets of State cars sweeping in and out of Dublin Castle, that there is “buy in” from communities across the country.<\/p>\n

While support for the EU remains at 82% – unchanged from 2025 – the latest European Movement Ireland (EMI) poll suggests the bloc\u2019s reputation has taken a knock over its handling of the Israel-Gaza War: Less than half of the population (45%) believe the EU is headed in the right direction and 33% believe it is not upholding its core values.<\/p>\n

“The Irish Government sees this as an opportunity to build and reconnect the EU with the Irish citizen,” Aingeal O\u2019Donoghue, Ireland\u2019s ambassador to the EU, recently told an event at the European Policy Centre (EPC), “even though Ireland is and remains one of the most pro-European countries”.<\/p>\n

Key departments – especially Foreign Affairs, DETI, Environment and Transport – will be consumed by the legislative responsibilities in Brussels.<\/p>\n

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has run monthly interdepartmental meetings involving all 20 Government departments to assess the spectrum of the EU\u2019s legislative programme for the next six months.<\/p>\n

Some legislative files being steered by Irish officials in Brussels will require a lot of input from ministers.<\/p>\n

\"Four
\nSome legislative files being steered by Irish officials in Brussels will require input from ministers<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin, with a longer political memory than most, has referred privately to the Fine Gael\/Labour coalition taking their eye off the domestic ball during the 1996 EU presidency, allowing Fianna F\u00e1il to win the general election in 1997.<\/p>\n

“We will have a big program of meetings in Ireland and we need to not mess that up,” says one Dublin source. “You want everybody to come and go back at least with no bad memories, ideally with good memories. You want the media to be fed, you want the security to work.”<\/p>\n

The latter has been a concern, with the risk of drone incursions high enough to prompt the Government to spend \u20ac19m on a counter-drone system for Baldonnel Airport. No-one in Government wants a repeat of the fuel protests that brought the country to a standstill in April.<\/p>\n

\"tractors
\nProtesters blocked O’Connell Street in Dublin during demonstrations in April<\/p>\n

Compared to 2013, there is more than double the number of meetings planned in Ireland – some 280 in total. Around three quarters will happen in Dublin, the rest scattered across the country.<\/p>\n

There will be 22 informal gatherings of EU ministers, but the biggest undertaking will be the European Political Community (EPC) – the biannual gathering of continental EU and non-EU leaders – which will be followed by an informal European Council.<\/p>\n

Both meetings will take place in Dublin on 12 and 13 November and will pose the biggest diplomatic and security challenge the State has faced to date.<\/p>\n

The 22 ministerial gatherings, known as Informal Councils, will cover everything from foreign affairs and defence (in Druid\u2019s Glen on 1-2 September), to agriculture, fisheries, finance, environment, housing and international development.<\/p>\n

These meetings tend to be business-like: Ministers and their delegations fly in and fly out again.<\/p>\n

The hundreds of fringe meetings, by contrast, which will bring in thousands of delegates, will be looser, more relaxed affairs where Irish music and hospitality can be laid on a little more thickly.<\/p>\n

To boost the effort, the Government decided that each of the 26 Irish counties (south of the border) will be paired with a member state.<\/p>\n

Limerick has been paired with Germany, for example, meaning a programme of events including international conferences hosted by Mary Immaculate College, the University of Limerick and the Technological University of the Shannon bringing together academics, researchers and policymakers from Ireland, Germany and across Europe.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nLimerick has been paired with Germany<\/p>\n

What is the role of the Presidency in Brussels?<\/p>\n

Since the Lisbon Treaty, the European Council – ie, the forum which brings together 27 prime ministers – has been chaired by a permanent president, in this case Ant\u00f3nio Costa. Meetings of foreign affairs ministers are chaired by the EU\u2019s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas.<\/p>\n

In all other policy areas, Ireland chairs all formations that bring together 27 national governments. Its role is to forge a common position on legislative proposals.<\/p>\n

Once that position has been adopted, Ireland has a mandate from 26 governments to negotiate with the European Parliament to turn the legislative files into EU law.<\/p>\n

That is done through a so-called Trilogue, the most intense part of the process.<\/p>\n

On most occasions, the Irish Presidency will be represented in a trilogue by either of the two Irish ambassadors to the EU (Aingeal O\u2019Donoghue or C\u00e1it Moran); the Parliament will be represented by the rapporteur from the relevant committee, and the European Commission will be present as an observer and guide.<\/p>\n

“The trilogues are a bit of a black box for the Council [ie, the member states]”, says one EU diplomat. “You send the Presidency into the trilogue, you give them a mandate, you send them to negotiate, they come back and tell you what happened. But you’re not in the room, you don’t know what’s happening there.”<\/p>\n

There is an inherent tension: The European Parliament tends to want more out of the legislation, while the member states want less (Ireland is there on behalf of the member states).<\/p>\n

Trilogues have also become a more bruising confrontation. The European Parliament is more assertive about its role, and the rise in far-right parties has made the process less predictable.<\/p>\n

“The Parliament has become ever better in defending its prerogatives”, says Sabina Lange, associate professor, Center for Diplomatic, Economic and Legal studies at the University of Ljubljana, and director of Think Europe.<\/p>\n

“On the other hand, it has become ever more difficult to actually understand what the Parliament’s priority or majority is because of the positions of the political groups, because often there are alternative majorities available.”<\/p>\n

The Parliament\u2019s negotiators also know that a Presidency is only there for six months, meaning they can pressurise Irish officials to cut a deal (MEPs, by contrast, are elected for a five year term).<\/p>\n

That has led to recent situations where a trilogue deal goes back to the member states in Coreper and it is promptly rejected or questioned.<\/p>\n

The trilogue is also where the political aims of the legislation collide with the technical aspects of how to implement that legislation out across 27 member states.<\/p>\n

If there is no breakthrough, the Presidency will propose a breakout meeting, where a handful of key negotiators will get into a separate room to thrash out a compromise.<\/p>\n

Getting to the trilogue is, in itself, an arduous journey.<\/p>\n

New proposals from the European Commission go both to the relevant European Parliament committee(s) and also to the so-called Working Parties of the Council, i.e. civil servants and diplomats from the 27 member states.<\/p>\n

\"three
\nEuropean Union flags fly at the European Commission<\/p>\n

All sides start pouring over the proposal to see where it may conflict with national sensitivities or political imperatives.<\/p>\n

Each Working Party will be chaired by an Irish official.<\/p>\n

“It’s not just that there’s a chair”, says one source, “but there’s also a team around the chair who are going to run each Working Party, who are preparing for each meeting, figuring out what is the position of all 26 of the member states.<\/p>\n

“How am I going to run the meeting? What papers do I need? Who do I need to talk to in advance?”<\/p>\n

Once the legislation has been put through the Working Party process, with each member state suggesting amendments, the Irish chair will have to decide if there is sufficient consensus to push the file up to the next level: Coreper, or the Committee of Permanent Representatives.<\/p>\n

Coreper is made up of 27 national ambassadors to the EU, all doing the bidding of their governments.<\/p>\n

Much of the EU\u2019s legislation is agreed through a weighted consensus known as a Qualified Majority Vote (QMV). A QMV vote is carried if 16 out 27 member states agree, and those member states represent at least 65% of the EU population.<\/p>\n

The trick for the Irish Presidency will be to know when the file is ready to send up to Coreper so that it gains at least a QMV level of support. If the file arrives and is promptly rejected, that will be a waste of everybody\u2019s time and a black mark against the Presidency.<\/p>\n

The Government has put huge resources into boosting staff in Ireland\u2019s Permanent Representation to the EU in Brussels (known as the Perm Rep). The personnel has more than doubled to 220.<\/p>\n

Several thousand officials have been trained in Dublin and Brussels to cope with over 170 meetings of Working Parties, as well as all the other meetings.<\/p>\n

If the legislative file is agreed at Coreper, then it goes further up the chain to the Council of Ministers (eg, Ecofin, Agri-Fish, Environment) for further political assessment.<\/p>\n

At a certain point, the file is either blocked, because one or other member state is getting cold feet (in which case the issue may go up to the next summit of EU leaders), or a Council position is adopted, and that is what the Irish Presidency then takes to the trilogue.<\/p>\n

Two years in advance of the Presidency, Irish ambassadors were tasked with getting to know national and regional politicians in every EU member state (even within the EU\u2019s legislative machinery, all politics is local).<\/p>\n

Irish ministers and diplomats have been attending every European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg to glad-hand members of the most important committees.<\/p>\n

Thomas Byrne, Minister of State for European Affairs, recently told a public meeting in Brussels: “If you’re going into trilogues, if you\u2019re going to pass [EU] laws, you have to know who your counterparts are.<\/p>\n

“Putting that emphasis on the European Parliament in the past year I hope will have paid off, because we know these people well, we\u2019re getting to know them personally.”<\/p>\n

\"a
\nMinister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne<\/p>\n

But all that preparation is often no match for the curved balls that the current geopolitical climate tends to throw. It will be on the Government to decide when to schedule emergency Council or Coreper meetings.<\/p>\n

The Danish EU presidency in 2025 had scheduled 25 Coreper meetings. In the event, there were 55 meetings as the EU struggled to respond to the return of Donald Trump and his tariff war.<\/p>\n

Many took place in the “bunker”, two floors below ground in the Council headquarters in Brussels, where phones are left at the door.<\/p>\n

When a hastily arranged summit between the EU and President Trump took place in Turnberry, Scotland in July, the 27 EU ambassadors of Coreper were in Nuuk, Greenland on an away day.<\/p>\n

They were all bustled into a hotel conference room to give guidance to the European Commission team by videolink.<\/p>\n

“In the current geopolitical context you need to be able to adapt and to improvise”, Carsten Gr\u00f8nbech-Jensen, Denmark\u2019s ambassador to the EU, told RT\u00c9 News.<\/p>\n

“But it\u2019s much better if you have a solid plan to work from. We felt the difference from 2012 where things were much more stable. In 2025, we faced multiple urgencies at the same time across policy areas. That\u2019s the new reality for a Council Presidency.<\/p>\n

“In 2025 the whole international background was a lot more volatile: Ukraine – a real war in Europe, and lots of related defence and security challenges, the new American president, who wanted to change our trading relationship and introduce tariffs, pressure to advance quickly on several policy files to strengthen European competitiveness in response to the Draghi report, migration reform. We had to adapt a lot more.”<\/p>\n

Which begs the question: How far can Ireland advance its own agenda while managing a vast panoply of negotiations and geopolitical shocks?<\/p>\n

Throughout the Presidency, Ireland is expected to be a neutral chair. However, with skill, officials can schedule meetings and set agendas to advance the State\u2019s priorities, or at least to not waste meetings and interpreter time on policy files which aren\u2019t getting anywhere.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the Danish presidency, prime minister Mette Frederiksen poured cold water on the idea of a neutral presidency, saying that the legislative process needed political leadership.<\/p>\n

As such, Denmark championed those files that were in tune with its national priorities (climate goals, migration, security and defence, and the support of Ukraine), carefully aligning its position with the European Commission on key areas before the Presidency started, and being a tough chair in trilogue negotiations on some legislative files that were important to Copenhagen.<\/p>\n

Ireland has an excellent reputation in Brussels based on previous presidencies, and member states are expecting a professional operation this time around.<\/p>\n

‘Irish officials give the impression that they’re well prepared’ – diplomat<\/p>\n

“Irish officials give the impression that they’re well prepared, they’ve been doing the work, they’ve been putting the right people in place,” says one EU diplomat. “The expectations in that sense are reasonably high.”<\/p>\n

There is also the risk that Irish ministers will be pressured by bigger member states to move files in a certain direction.<\/p>\n

A number of sources have suggested that during the Irish Presidency in 2013, the then German Chancellor Angela Merkel put pressure on then taoiseach Enda Kenny to pull a regulation on diesel emissions – that were later implicated in the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal – from the agenda of a Coreper meeting.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of policy areas this time around where France and Germany have strong preferences.<\/p>\n

Despite that, Irish sources are clear that they will mount a professional presidency.<\/p>\n

One diplomat remarked: “Sometimes a large country presidency thinks they\u2019re going to remake the EU in their name.<\/p>\n

“We’re not going to do that. But within the context of what a presidency can do, and within the challenges that the world has, we want to make use of the opportunity to move the EU in the direction we think it needs to be moved in.”<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, Tony Connelly will look at the EU policies the Irish Government will be expected to steer towards a conclusion during its six month Presidency.<\/p>\n

Read more
The ups and downs of Ireland’s 1975 European presidency<\/a>
Ukraine, Russia and the shadows that will fall on Ireland’s EU presidency<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Wednesday, the eyes of Europe will fall on Ireland as the State assumes the Presidency of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-520837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}