The Irish Times view on the EU presidency: Ireland’s turn in the spotlight

This week’s summits were undoubtedly the main events of Ireland’s EU presidency, featuring first a gathering of almost 50 of Europe’s leaders and then one of the regular informal gatherings of the European Council, involving the 27 member states. Neither were events where major decisions came up for agreement. But there is still a value in face-to-face diplomacy both in the formal agenda of such gatherings and perhaps, even more, in discussions around the margins.

Ireland has always prided itself on its soft power around the EU table which, successive governments believe, helped it to make the State’s case when big decisions came to be made. Arguably, this has reduced of late. Recent governments have faced criticism for not paying enough attention to the issue of Ireland’s role in EU - and the State’s soaring corporate tax revenues provide a controversial backdrop.

In this context, the two summits will have regained some ground and were a necessary and important investment. Professionally organised – albeit at the cost of public disruption from the major security operation – both meetings gave leaders a chance to discuss important matters, not least the war in Ukraine. No major breakthrough came as US negotiators returned from Moscow to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Dublin. But Europe’s leaders were able to underline their support for Ukraine and their desire to be represented at the negotiating table. The EU faces some difficult decisions here, but progress was made on the issue of how it would be represented in future negotiations.

Big internal dilemmas face the EU, including the divisive negotiations on a new seven-year budget to start in 2028. Talks on this illustrate the sometimes awkward interplay between the state holding the presidency and the central bureaucracy in Brussels. Ireland put forward a budget compromise plan, which was criticised by all sides. As Taoiseach Micheál Martin said, this was a task in trying to “reconcile the irreconcilable”.

Now the job of seeking a way forward is handed on to European Council president António Costa. A crunch summit due at the end of the month is intended to try to broker a way forward, but for now the different camps remain far apart. Some way forward will be found, but it needs to underpin the solidarity at the heart of the EU.

In an EU made up of 27 countries the practice of each member state taking its turn at the presidency does not sit as comfortably as it did in earlier days. But it is the way things are done and Ireland will pass on the baton with some progress made in important areas, such as the savings and investment union. The speed at which the EU makes decisions remains a barrier; the Union usually gets there in the end. But the world moves quickly; the EU should too.