Opinion

Time to end our wink and nod, buffet-style approach to European affairs

For Ireland, the Anglosphere continues to define its future cultural and socio-economic development

Dublin has always viewed 'Europe' as a means of escaping its own history, but never really as a destination it can help shape and build in its own right. Photograph: Stephanie Lecocq/EPA

Eoin Drea
Mon Jan 2 2023 - 09:33

Isn’t it time – after 50 years – for a little realism on Ireland’s role in the European Union?

Unfortunately, even in 2022, Dublin just keeps pumping out the same old tunes. And while the narrative of the Emerald Isle throwing off the shackles of its oppressed past and transforming itself into a global economic dynamo is obviously appealing, it’s not a real strategy for continued success at European level. Especially, if you’ve been singing the same song for decades around the fringes of every EU meeting you’ve been invited to attend.

Even the greatest hits get old when you play them again, again and again.

Because while Ireland’s membership of the European single market (and to a lesser extent the euro zone) have played essential roles in this island’s economic and social metamorphosis, they have failed to embed any sense of responsibility in Ireland for shaping Europe’s future.

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For five decades, Ireland has been happy to feast on the low-hanging fruits of EU membership – foreign investment, employment, billions of euro in direct EU funding – while ignoring the bigger responsibilities that explicitly derive from membership of the wider integration process.

It’s a wink and nod, buffet-style approach to European affairs.

While membership of the EU (and Brexit) has helped Ireland diversify away from Britain in a traditional economic sense, it has not reduced Ireland’s reliance on the English-speaking world

The truth is that Dublin has always viewed “Europe” as a means of escaping its own history, but never really as a destination it can help shape and build in its own right.

This is unsurprising given that Ireland’s original engagement with the EU was predicated on two clear objectives. First, a genuine desire to dilute British economic influence in Ireland. Second, a deeply ironic realisation that once Britain sought to join, Ireland would have little choice but to follow suit given the scale of Irish dependencies upon the old colonial master.

[ Ireland’s future lies firmly in the EU but it can never be at the heart of Europe ]

Britain led Ireland into Europe, not the other way round.

The result – as the ongoing legacies of Brexit highlight – is an Irish engagement with Europe that is still largely determined by Ireland’s relationships with Britain. A dominant political and cultural relationship that has been joined (and in many ways superseded) by a direct economic dependence upon the US.

So while membership of the EU (and Brexit) has helped Ireland diversify away from Britain in a traditional economic sense, it has not reduced Ireland’s reliance on the English-speaking world. Culturally, Ireland’s dependencies remain firmly on an Anglo-American line. As one senior German MEP asked me on a recent visit to Dublin – “Does Ireland have any TV channels of its own, or is all the programming British?”

For Ireland, the Anglosphere continues to define its future cultural and socio-economic development. From J1 visas for college students to backpacking stints in the Australian outback, it is the old empire that continues to frame Ireland’s place in both Europe and the wider world.

Melbourne still feels way more familiar to Irish people than Munich or Madrid.

And while membership of the EU is an integral part of Ireland’s economic success, so too is Ireland’s deepening reliance on US multinationals in just two very specific areas – technology and pharmaceuticals. Rather than using EU membership to reach out to the world, Ireland has deliberately allowed it to narrow its economic horizons.

Who needs big banks anyway, when you have big tech and big pharma to replace them?

Despite the often bombastic rhetoric, the EU just remains a policy choice for Ireland. It’s in the Anglosphere where the real Irish emotion lies

So while there is always another European Commission or European Movement survey extolling Ireland’s self-identification as the best of Europeans, this belies a superficial and simplistic engagement in EU affairs.

No English-speaking member state serious about European integration would allow continental languages to go untaught in its primary schools over five decades of membership. No fully engaged member would use its native language – spoken daily by less than 2 per cent of its own population – as its main strategy for increasing Irish personnel in Brussels. All the while failing to dramatically increase support for its broader use at home.

A state intent on being at the “heart of Europe” would not focus so intently on key Irish personalities in positions of EU leadership – Paschal Donohoe, Prof Philip Lane and others. This cosmetic approach distracts from the dearth of real Irish influence in the day-to-day mid-level decision-making processes that comprise the heart of the EU.

[ Eoin Drea: Our battles with Brussels only beginning ]

A country even vaguely serious about the responsibilities of EU membership, could not allow its Defence Forces – across all its component parts – degrade to such an extent that it cannot even adequately patrol (let alone protect) Ireland and the EU’s northwestern border.

Unfortunately, even in a post-Ukraine world, little change in Ireland’s approach to Europe is likely. No political appetite exists for the fundamental domestic policy changes required to really help Ireland evolve its role in Brussels.

Despite the often bombastic rhetoric, the EU just remains a policy choice for Ireland. It’s in the Anglosphere where the real Irish emotion lies.

Eoin Drea is a senior researcher at the Wilfried Martens Centre, the official think tank of the European People’s Party of which Fine Gael is a member

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