The European Union is about to increase in scope and cost, and there will be major consequences for Ireland. The barrage of rocket fire from the White House is compelling theatre, but the ripple effects in the aftermath will be profound. We spent years navel gazing about constitutional change at home, but we are now in a maelstrom that will bring institutional change on a scale that will substantially alter the focus, purpose and workings of the EU.
It seems like another era, but only 20 years ago Ireland led orderly negotiations to successfully agree to an EU constitution. It was rejected first in a French referendum, then a Dutch one, and that was that. The last EU mandate coincided with Covid-19, the invasion of Ukraine and rampant inflation. Former European Council president Charles Michel tweeted “Deal” at 5.15am on July 21st, 2020. The EU had created a €750 billion coronavirus fund, partly based on common borrowing, on top of a seven-year, €1 trillion EU budget.
This was a historic mutualisation of debt, a requirement to submit national budgetary plans to Brussels and the ability of those plans to be referred to the European Council. Its full effects are only beginning to unfold. There will be no considered constitutional process this time. Momentous decisions will be made on the hoof in coming weeks and months that will see the EU mutate into something significantly different.
The end of an 80-year alliance between the United States and Europe means defence will become a fifth pillar or freedom for the union, along with the free movement of goods, services, capital and people. This demands new money, in an expanded budget and potentially new ways of raising it. There won’t be treaty change soon, so that requires shimmying around circles that must be squared. Enlargement to encompass the entry of new states in the east would further strain existing budgets and the solidarity that EU spending brings. A solution might be to exempt defence spending from EU fiscal rules. That should be easy to understand in Ireland, where we specialised in the exemption of repeated “once-off” Covid-related expenditure from budgetary norms long after the pandemic was over.
Johnny Watterson: A joint final bow the most fitting end for Ireland trio who always put team first
Junk Kouture dress made of car seatbelts inspired by road safety campaign
Radio Review: Carl, Roz & Aisling’s on-air vibes trump cookie-cutter formulas on 2FM’s new breakfast show
Opinion: EU is about to become bigger and more powerful and there will be consequences for Ireland
The post-Brexit UK is using defence as its entry back on to the European stage. There is no credible European defence without the UK, which is an irony for neutral Ireland, dependent on it for air and sea cover but itself defenceless
All eyes are now on Germany and its next chancellor, Friedrich Merz. He is hemmed in at home by a debt brake which imposes strict limits on public borrowing; a Weimar legacy in a Trump world. Changing the fiscal rules is essential for Merz to deliver increased German defence spending and investment in domestic infrastructure. His problem is that under German law the opposition will have a blocking minority in the new parliament. He could smash and grab by pushing through a constitutional change in the dying days of this parliament where he likely has the numbers, a move that would be malodorous, if it is even legal.
German capacity, or the lack of it, means the EU is the backstop for delivering on increased spending. The bloc will simultaneously want to end trade dependency on Russia while not falling back on an unreliable US. It will actively seek ratification of the Mercosur trade deal with Latin American countries, and CETA (the EU-Canada trade deal), both of which are advantageous to Ireland. We have a curious ability to see all these issues as separate and hand over our national interest as a hostage to special interests, principally farming. How the parties in Government retreat from the ledge on this remains to be seen. It is another example of how we position ourselves on international issues for a domestic audience, to the acute disadvantage of the country. We forget that this is a small world in which you need joined-up thinking.
The drama from the Trump administration is all-consuming. But the EU is the house we live in. The coming period will see the working out of ad hoc compromises to provide money and means at speed, and a view that things can be finessed afterwards. There is clearly a race against time. The next few weeks will see an EU defence paper published and the prospect of US tariffs clarified. Germany’s new chancellor has spoken about the UK and French nuclear umbrella shielding his country in future. The post-Brexit UK is using defence as its entry back on to the European stage. There is no credible European defence without the UK, which is an irony for neutral Ireland, dependent on it for air and sea cover but itself defenceless.
New spending priorities will mean that other issues receive less attention, less money or both. The lack of capacity for treaty change doesn’t negate the need for it. Small accession states in the east are vulnerable to outside influence and in an EU largely dependent on unanimity, that matters.
There is a sense that the Government here lacks the political bandwidth to comprehend the scale and speed of change and the number of moving parts involved. The world in which we conducted a general election last November based on fantastical manifestos and bombastic posturing about far-away conflicts is over, but the damage is lasting. We have been left with fewer friends and less credibility at a time when we have more to lose than ever.
