Taoiseach Micheál Martin walked into a two-day summit of European leaders this week in what he described as “listening mode”.
It is less than a fortnight before Ireland takes on the Council of the European Union presidency, the first time it has held the influential position since 2013.
Rather than being a central power broker for six months, the EU presidency means Ireland is trying to grease the deal-making wheels that Brussels runs on.
“The reality is it’s more of a workmanlike role,” says one diplomatic source.
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The council of the EU is the cog in the Brussels system that represents the interests of member states. The presidency rotates every six months.
Irish Ministers and diplomats will chair EU-level discussions and broker compromises between the other 26 countries from July 1st until the end of this year.
Perhaps the biggest focus during the Irish presidency will be the mammoth seven-year EU budget, known technically as the multiannual financial framework. The proposal for the next edition is for a pot of €1.73 trillion.
Inevitably there will be rows about who gets what – and who pays for it. Refereeing that falls to Ireland.
“The real heavy lifting that needs to be done is the negotiations on the budget,” says one Irish Minister.
Within the EU there are broadly two camps: the “frugals” – northern European countries who want to spend less – and a majority who want to spend more.
There’s pressure to put cash aside for defence and an expanded “competitiveness fund” to kick-start Europe’s sluggish economy.
The overwhelming bulk of the EU budget is made up of national contributions, weighted to each country’s economy.
The European Commission is hoping to bridge a shortfall between its ambitions and the amount kicked in from state coffers by raising additional money.
One senior EU official said the Irish Government would table a revised draft budget in October. A row about its size, shape and focus will intensify after that point.
A diplomat from the frugal camp criticised the latest draft as a “nostalgia” budget, that clung too closely to the bloc’s traditional funds, Common Agricultural Policy (Cap) and regional development.
One Dublin-based diplomat says: “It’s very complicated and big, there’s no set deadline [and] a risk some member states just camp out on the hard lines.”
Minister of State for Europe Thomas Byrne, who will play a hands-on role in budget negotiations, says any deal would require countries to “undraw” red lines.
“If we’re doing a good job, people will be giving out about us in Brussels at various points, many will be giving out about us at home, but we’ve a specific role to do here, which is to be the honest broker around the table,” he says.
[ Failure to land European budget deal would leave EU in ‘limbo’, Taoiseach saysOpens in new window ]
Ireland has also vowed to make progress on competitiveness – a key focus for Brussels power brokers who fret about Europe being left behind.
This debate usually crystallises into tension between countries that want a more protectionist approach and those wary of red tape.
“That’s where Ireland needs a bit of a shift in European mentality,” says one Dublin-based diplomat.
As a small, open, trading economy it is threatened by what this person labels “EU protectionism”.
The prevailing mood in most European capitals is decidedly security- and defence-focused. The politics of this in Ireland are complex, but Dublin has made security one of its core presidency priorities.
“It might be of help to have Ireland leading the discussion instead of a big Nato country in the EU,” says one diplomat.
Plans to enlarge the EU camp must also be minded, with Moldova, Albania, Montenegro and, of course, Ukraine, at different stages in the complex and lengthy accession process.
“Ukraine’s sheer size, economic strengths and internal political dynamics present the largest accession challenge of an individual member state since perhaps the Spanish accession,” says Neale Richmond, Minister of State in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
“That is before any consideration that Ukraine is currently at war.”
While negotiations are led by the commission, Richmond says enlargement will be a “massive part” of the Irish presidency.
There is an expectation a large batch of “chapters” in Ukraine’s accession negotiations will formally be opened within weeks of Ireland assuming the presidency.
The sheer scale is daunting.
“This is going to be the biggest policing and security operation in the history of the State,” says one security source.
Threats, both physical and in the cyber space, are expected.
A European Political Community summit bringing nearly 50 heads of state and government to Dublin’s Convention Centre in November “will be the single largest security operation ever undertaken” by the Garda, according to an internal Department of Justice briefing.
The last time Ireland hosted the presidency, 13 years ago, protest was muted. Some in government quietly argue that April’s fuel protests provided a timely reminder of how disruptive protests can be.
They showed, according to one Minister, “how you can block a motorway, bring the country to what feels like a standstill and this is what happens if you leave it two, three, four days to respond”.
The list of threats has expanded to include cyber attacks, drone incursions and other types of foreign interference.
“We’re not saying it’s definitely going to happen but the experience during the most recent EU presidencies is that someone does try something,” a security source says.
Diplomatic sources say Ireland has now contacted neighbours in Europe on security co-operation, although some eyebrows were raised over how long this took.
Internal records suggest the French offered to send police to assist gardaí to manage the massive security operation.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan discussed the security arrangements with France’s ambassador to Ireland, Céline Place, last October, according to a briefing note prepared by his officials.
Speaking notes advised O’Callaghan to thank the ambassador for “the openness of the French authorities to considering the potential for support from your police system”.
For all its heft, European politics – and by extension the presidency – can feel impenetrable to domestic audiences.
This can frustrate veterans such as Bobby McDonagh, a former Irish diplomat who served as ambassador to the UK and EU.
“[The presidency] is an essential part of the jigsaw of how the EU works,” he says – in effect managing the rolling series of negotiations which is the life blood of EU politics.
“It’s immensely exciting,” he says.
“There’s probably no more exciting form of negotiation than what takes place [in Europe].”
The presidency is generally seen as an opportunity to shape agendas and to make a good impression.
Minister for Innovation and Science James Lawless says the negotiations on the next round of the Horizon research programme funding is “as big as CAP for Ireland, arguably bigger”.
However, another Cabinet source privately says the theory of the presidency is it’s a “brilliant opportunity for Ireland to show it’s a big player on the international stage”.
The reality, this person says, is that “voters don’t care”.
The reputational risk of a logistics or security foul-up, or of political mismanagement, hangs over the whole enterprise.
There is a concern that the extra workload will lead to a slowdown on the Coalition’s domestic agenda.
A paper prepared for top officials in the Department of Justice said there was a “significant risk that Ministers will expect progress to continue on their domestic policy agendas at a time when many staff will be fully occupied by the presidency”.
The document, released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, also warned of a “significant reputational risk, at home and in Brussels, if the department does not play its part in delivering a successful presidency”.
Expectations are high inside the EU institutions for a competent presidency.
“Anybody who has been around this game for any length of time couldn’t help but be impressed by how the Irish have prepared,” one senior commission source says.
There is also the cost of the whole thing – and the associated optics.
In a January 27th letter, Department of Foreign Affairs secretary general Joe Hackett wrote to colleagues across Government departments stressing the need to ensure “value for money” and “careful financial management” during the presidency.
Whatever Ireland’s best-laid plans contain, the current moment of geopolitical upheaval means the presidency may have to grapple with the unexpected.
“Any presidency has to be agile and reactive to events,” says Richmond.
“The Cypriots didn’t expect to have to call emergency summits or cancel their own meetings but then the war in the Middle East changed all that.”
The mood among officials intimately involved in the presidency preparation has started to feel a little like the days before sitting the Leaving Certificate exams: you’ve no more time to study and you just want the thing to start, for better or worse.
