As the business of politics begins following a week of pomp and ceremony that launched Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Government is set to be faced with tough decisions on key elements of Irish foreign policy over the next six months.
Rather than concealing contradictions between expounding our value-based approach abroad while failing to take bold action at home on a range of issues, the presidency risks revealing the vulnerabilities of the State, from agriculture to trade agreements and the robustness of our defence forces.
It should be asked whether the presidency, which politicians are touting as important for Irish internationalism, is going to be a value-added experience or an exposure of the hypocrisies lurking beneath Ireland’s shiny new role.
From Foxford to Cork, Irish representatives are hoisting EU flags, shaking hands with a farrago of EU officials and reciting the rehearsed rhetoric reflecting Ireland’s policy pillars for the presidency: competitiveness, security and values.
Through a co-ordinated press campaign, politicians and policymakers have honed a chorus about the importance of hosting our eighth presidency. Ireland’s main role will be to act as an honest broker, helping to forge a consensus on the EU budget, which is expected to tilt away from the familiar fonds of Cap (Common Agricultural Policy) and cohesion funding towards energy infrastructure, defence spending and industrial policy.
Irish officials will be under pressure to steer the process, seen as pivotal to the future of the EU, to agreement with the other 26 member states by the end of the year.
Notwithstanding the point that the budget will move funding away from areas Ireland has greatly benefited from, the Government will face a broader set of contradictions as the chasm between foreign and domestic policies expands.
On top of reduced EU spending on Cap, which is the source of income for almost 75 per cent of average Irish family farms, market pressures around making EU agriculture more competitive will increase income volatility. This will be a source of tension for the Government as it takes the lead on negotiating EU agriculture spending away from the priorities of Irish farmers.
Increased EU trade competitiveness poses an even bigger challenge. Ireland operates a highly competitive economy based on FDI (foreign direct investment) and a low corporate tax rate, which creates optimum conditions for growth, largely due to the rich tax base generated by multinational corporations.
However, plans to develop a more co-ordinated EU industrial policy which would involve greater corporate governance may prove to be at odds with Ireland’s economic policies. In recent years, OECD initiatives together with EU pressure forced the government to raise corporate tax from 12.5 per cent to 15 per cent for major corporations, demonstrating how EU rules can impact the autonomy of domestic economic policy.
At the centre of this trade question are two issues that directly expose some of the central contradictions of Ireland’s position.
The first is the situation with Aughinish Alumina. The Co Limerick facility, owned by Russian aluminium producer Rusal, is shipping vast amounts of alumina to smelters in Russia, where it is turned into aluminium. These smelters then sell finished aluminium to a Moscow-based trading company, which supplies much of the Russian arms industry.
The recent revelations have sounded a stray note among the government’s continual refrain of support for Ukraine. While acknowledging that closure of the facility would result in job losses, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who visited Dublin last week, has called on the Government to halt exports from the plant.
In response, the Government has doubled down, denying any request was made to keep the company off the EU sanctions list, to safeguard the continual operation of the facility while failing to take any clear action.
On the defence issue, Ireland has an even bigger Achilles’ heel. The presidency began on a low ebb when it emerged that Ukraine had rejected a donation of armoured vehicles from the Irish Defence Forces. The South-African made units had a poor performance record – so much so they are now set to be scrapped.
This rather embarrassing episode offers a woeful snapshot of the State’s defence capabilities, the limits of which are set to be fully visible as the island hosts weekly international negotiations for the rest of the year. Rather than contributing to Europe’s defence and participating as a proactive partner to build the bloc’s resilience, Ireland’s starting position is one of enhanced reliance on the EU for our own sovereignty.
There are other tensions in our position regarding human rights and trade. While Irish representatives at the UN are whipping the votes to secure Ireland’s election to the UN Human Rights Council later this year , the Occupied Territories Bill continues to founder in the ether somewhere in Leinster House.
Directly highlighting how Ireland often proclaims human rights values abroad while failing to uphold such rhetoric at home, the Bill was recently watered down to exclude services to lessen the effect on our economy.
The presidency offers an opportunity to lead the campaign to suspend EU trade with Israel, but doing so will require the Government to ratify the Bill as substantive legislation, overcoming what seems to be significant dissonance if not disinclination to enact it.
More broadly the shifting geopolitical environment, which has produced a succession of seismic shocks to traditional global order in recent years, is set to remain unstable. The ability of Ireland to respond effectively to guide the EU through further crises is now in the spotlight.
Rather than the added value for Ireland of hosting the presidency, this role is likely to expose the hypocrisies at the heart of our position on a range of issues.
Ireland can continue to walk a tightrope of contradiction or can tackle these questions despite discomforts they may create domestically. This would allow at least some of the rhetoric of the last week to ring true.
Failure to take such an assertive approach will mean that the central paradoxes of Ireland’s global role will undermine, rather than enhance, our international standing.
Alanna O’Malley is professor of global governance and wealth at Erasmus University Rotterdam