{"id":564490,"date":"2026-07-23T16:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T16:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/564490\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T16:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T16:18:15","slug":"ukraine-priority-for-ireland-during-eu-presidency-taoiseach-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/564490\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine \u2018priority\u2019 for Ireland during EU presidency, Taoiseach says"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Taoiseach has said it was \u201cvery important\u201d to go to Ukraine early in Ireland\u2019s EU presidency as a demonstration of solidarity.<\/p>\n

Miche\u00e1l Martin was speaking to reporters in the country\u2019s capital, Kyiv, on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Asked if there was a danger the EU\u2019s focus would drift because of the war in the Middle East, he said \u201cwe have too many wars in the world\u201d, adding that conflict has had \u201ca very, very negative impact\u201d there and on the wider world.<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said it was \u201cvery, very important to come out here early\u201d during Ireland\u2019s six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union to make clear to Ukraine \u201cthey are a priority in terms of the Irish presidency\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TaoiseachTaoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin visited the bomb-damaged Lukianivska district of Kyiv. Photo: Niall Carson\/PA.<\/p>\n

The start of Ireland\u2019s term was marked with a ceremony at Dublin Castle on July 1st which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a long war,\u201d Martin acknowledged, and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin obviously is banking on people getting weary and war-weary.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he \u201ccan\u2019t comprehend\u201d how the people of Ukraine deal with the war and the losses on the front line were \u201chorrendous\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow Russian leadership can preside over the loss of so much life and so many soldiers on both sides, I do not understand,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

However, he said there was still a \u201cstrong\u201d appetite among EU countries to support Ukraine, which was demonstrated by the new package of sanctions agreed by the EU.<\/p>\n

\"TaoiseachMiche\u00e1l Martin (left) and Volodymyr Zelensky during a press conference at the Presidential Palace in Kyiv. Photo: Niall Carson\/PA.<\/p>\n

He also said opening new clusters as part of Ukraine\u2019s EU accession process would also \u201cfacilitate substantial discussions\u201d and \u201copportunities for Ukraine to progress its application to join the European Union\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked how realistic it would be to progress Ukraine\u2019s accession talks during Ireland\u2019s presidency, given the length of the term,\u00a0 Martin said: \u201cGetting them open is the key thing so that negotiations can be in each of them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Taoiseach<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Taoiseach says \u2018no concrete evidence\u2019 on alumina exports investigation<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s our agenda, and that\u2019s what we aim to do. It\u2019s quite realistic if we get co-operation from others.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged \u201cthere will always be issues\u201d, but \u201cour job is to try and persuade others to agree to at least open the clusters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does take time then to continue the negotiations, and it\u2019s another decision then to close them, to say that they\u2019re done and dusted and that they\u2019re agreed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taoiseach has said it was \u201cvery important\u201d to go to Ukraine early in Ireland\u2019s EU presidency as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-564490","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\/564490","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=564490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}